Aftershock
by tbm92
Summary: A kiss in desperate moments can lead to something bigger. It can cause an earthquake, shake your world, and then you have to face the aftershocks. ButchxButtercup.
1. Chapter 1

**Aftershock**

Isn't it surprising how a life can change so quickly? How someone can sleep with a smile on their faces to suddenly start smiling because they're still alive? The world had lived in peace for ten years; there were hardly any crime out of the ordinary stealing and such. Sounds too good to be true, doesn't it? Well it was. Soon after my sisters and I turned 16 the planet Earth was put in danger by a new enemy: the evil Fuse. His planet, Fusion, has traveled throughout the galaxy for millennia, devastating and absorbing countless planets and civilizations. This time it had chosen the planet Earth.

My friends and I fought it with all our strengths, but one by one, all of us failed. We have managed to keep some areas protected, thanks to Dexter's inventions, but it isn't enough. Fuse's desire to take over the planet is too strong to fight. One by one, each town in the world fell onto Fuse's hands. One by one I watched them fall: Endsville, Megaville… Townsville, they all fell and turn a grotesque green goo. The fights became harder and harder to survive as Fuse created his own versions of us calling them Fusions. Little by little, the Earth was dying and with it so were we. I was one of the few surviving heroes that were still fighting. My companions, my comrades, my friends… they all gave up little by little making this fight a whole lot more difficult for me. I felt alone. The only ones I had left were my sisters and the Professor Utonium.

You know what it was like before Fuse attacked? I was a rock star who lived on the road with my boyfriend and his gang. A year before Fuse attacked, I fought my old foe Mojo Jojo overseas. I won the fight, but at a high price. I lost my memory. During this time, Ace and his gang took me in, and under the name of Belladonna, I became a famous singer. After a while, I recovered my memory and went back to my sisters and creator, and when I thought everything was going to be better, Fuse attacked.

After two long years of fighting, there are few of us left. Dexter, Mandark, Dee Dee, Computress, my sisters, my father, Mojo Jojo, Him, Princess, Mayor, Ace, Fuzzy Lumkins, Ed, Edd, Eddy, the Kranker sisters, Bubbles's stupid dog Courage, Samurai Jack, the Scotsman, Demongo, Billy, Mandy, The KND, Coop, Mac and a few more were still alive. They weren't enough. But a thought has occurred to my genius sister Blossom: bring the Rowdyruff Boys. For as much as I hated to admit it, they're our only hope. Fuse doesn't know anything about them and they might be our saviors. I don't want to see them, I don't want them to be heroes, but it's necessary. I want the Earth to be safe again. I don't want any more of my friends to die. I want to be me again. I'm only eighteen years old, and yet I felt like a sixty-year-old.

"_Are you ready?"_ My sister Blossom said through the ear transmitter.

I sighed and turned the ear transmitter off. Sector V was under attack and it was my turn to protect it. Numbers 1 through 5 had been called to protect Candy Cove with Licorice Lips and Sticky Beard, while Dexter and Mandark were protecting Tech Square. So I was left alone to protect Sector V.

More fun for me.

I smirked as the Ultramagno Beetle and the Super Sneaky Spawn charged against me. I got in a fighting stand as the first Beetle tried to disable me by stinging my neck. Easy shot. Using my heat vision, I managed to melt it before it even got to my defendant zone. Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to keep the Beetles away from Sector V that I didn't notice those sneaky pawns to _sneak_ behind me and jump onto my back biting it. A sharp pain went through my body as the paralyzing poison started running through my veins. I hated these things like you have no idea.

More sneaky spawns crawled on me and soon I was trapped under a massive ball of weird acid goo. I could feel my limbs paralyzing slowly, the poison was running through my veins faster because of the adrenaline rushing as the air in my lungs was starting to fail me. If I tried to breathe in, the acid would enter my body faster and kill me from the inside. Dark spots started blurring my vision; I was on the verge of passing out when an explosion sent the sneaky pawns off me. I gasped, filling my lungs with as much oxygen as I could; unfortunately my body was still paralyzed until I got the antidote.

I could see the Beetles and the Sneaky Spawns running away as green energy balls hit three at a time, destroying them. I felt his hands grab my shoulders, his smug smile grew when he noticed I was completely paralyzed, he spun me and ripped part of the back of my shirt. I glared and blushed in my insides when I felt his lips on my back sucking the venom out.

_This is _so_ embarrassing…_

My body started gaining some movement thanks to him; of course I would never admit it. I hated him with all my heart, even when he had saved my life a couple of times before, I still hated him. I hated the way his green eyes still shone with malice. I hated how his black shaggy hair wasn't spiked up anymore because there was no more hair gel to keep it in place, making it a sexy mess. I hated how his voice was still filled with rough sarcasm and his smile was still the same smug smirk I wanted to rip off. I hated him because he was still himself after all of this we had gone through.

"You can stop now," I growled when my limbs were more movable.

The poison wasn't completely out, but now I could fly and get the actual antidote from Blossom instead of having him humiliate me some more. He sucked the last part of the venom out and ran his tongue up to my neck.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" punched him in the jaw hiding the blush that had taken over my cheeks and the shivers he had made me feel.

"What is wrong with me? I just saved your life!" Butch said cleaning his mouth; I had punched him hard enough to make him bleed. Good.

"I had everything under control until you got here!"

"Forgive me, but all those fuse monsters eating your clothes didn't seem you were having everything under control to me," he said with his same smirk eyeing my ripped clothes.

"Who asked you?" I yelled mad, "Who sent you here anyways?"

"Your carrot head sister told me you needed backup," he shrugged.

"Don't call my sister that!" I yelled angrily and grabbed his by the collar, "And get this in your stupid little head: I. Never. Need. Backup!"

"Is this the thanks I get for saving your life?" he stood up pushing my hands off of him, "I should've let those things eat your clothes away, _that_ would've been more rewarding."

I felt my cheeks burn in anger, "you asshole!"

I tried to slap him but he grabbed my wrist before my hand could get to his cheek and pulled me close to him.

"I know how to get a better reward," he smirked and licked his lips.

I felt my cheeks burning again as his lips got closer to mine. He stopped when his lips were an inch away from mine; he chuckled and flew away leaving a green streak behind him.

I gasped and cussed under my breath. That good for nothing son of a… monkey? I sighed and flew back slowly. I needed a new set of clothes, a bath and a good nap. Freaking Butch, I hated him so much; I really wished he was one of those many who had lost their lives in the great battle. I would choose Mitch over him, any day.

_I'm not supposed to wish bad to anyone, but Butch annoys me so much._

I got to tech square just in time for my sister Blossom to start nagging me about letting my guard down. I could see Butch's freaking smug smirk as Blossom repeated over and over again that I had been reckless allowing a Sneaky Spawn to paralyze me. I really had to try hard to _not_ yell back at her and tell her what was in my mind. Blossom sent me off to take a bath and to rest, and Bubbles, in her ever-lasting sweetness, told me she would call me as soon as dinner was ready.

I rolled my eyes and got in the bath taking my time enjoying the warm water around me. Butch would probably be in his room in Genius Grove with his brothers and Mojo Jojo. Hopefully he chokes with his food, but I don't think is possible to choke on canned beans. I made a face and got out of the tub when the water started getting cold. I wrapped a towel around my body, and dried off quickly when there was a soft knock on the door.

"Dinner's ready," Bubbles said happily from outside the door.

I rolled my eyes again. I couldn't help but feel jealous at Bubbles happiness, was I the only one feeling sour about this whole thing?

I opened the closet door and grabbed a gray sweatshirt that said 'Pokey Oaks High Softball Team' and put it on. I had grabbed this from one of the abandoned houses, since there wasn't anyone to make new clothes and all the boutiques had been drowned with green acid goo, we had to take our clothes from the people who had escaped without taking them. Whoever Sarah Downey was, she wasn't her sweatshirt and I _needed_ it. I grabbed green shorts I had found in the same house and put them on and soon I was on my way to have dinner.

I really didn't look forward to it. I mean, I have nothing against canned food, but I do have some curiosity of where it's coming from. All the harvesting crops were completely gone and there was no one to work in factories, so… I rather not think on what I might be really eating when the 'smashed beans' go down my throat.

I sat on my usual spot next to my sisters and started playing with my food. I wasn't hungry, nor was I in the mood to listen to Master Nerdo Dexter talk to Supreme Nerdo Blossom and my… respectable (Super Mega Nerdo) father about big numbers and equations and something about time and space… blah! I had better things to worry about. I looked outside my window, it was late and the sky was completely dark, without the moon to light my night, I felt lonelier that before.

I sighed and finished my food in less than a second. I excused myself from the table and went to my room. Even in this necessity, I had a room of my own, something I didn't have back in Townsville. My sisters and I would sleep in the same room. We got twin beds and a sofa that transformed into a bed. Blossom slept on the top bed, Bubbles on the bottom bed and me on the sofa. I smiled bitterly at the memories when I walked inside my room and saw through the window the moonless night.

_I would give this room up for my old life any time._

I sighed and decided to get out of this room, even if it was just for a little while, I want to get out _there_ even if it is just for fun, not necessarily because I have a sector to protect. I opened the window quietly and flew slowly so my green streak wouldn't alarm anybody. I noticed some smoke coming from the bushes.

_Maybe... nope, I don't have a good explanation…_

I got closer to where the smoke was coming from and noticed a pair of green emerald eyes staring at me. I rolled my eyes and his smirk grew bigger. I hated him so much! Life would be so much better without him… well, my life at least. His smirk turned into a defiant smile as he threw something on the floor and stepped on it. He let out whatever smoke was left through his mouth and ran a hand through his shaggy messy hair. I hated to admit he was really attractive, but all that charm was gone as soon as he opened his mouth.

"Thinking about me?" he asked when I was closer to him, at the outskirts of Sector V.

"I hate your new power," I said curtly landing in front of him.

He chuckled, "really, I love it, there's nothing in my brothers' mind I cannot see,"

Unfortunately for me, Butch had developed a new power which involved mind reading any time, any day. To make my suffering worse, he could also sneak in through my past memories and discover my darkest secrets.

_I wish I had that power_…

"I thought you said you didn't like it," Butch smirked.

"Get out of my head!" I ordered and he got closer to me.

"You know I can see things in your head that you can't, right?" His smug smile grew.

I blushed, and tried to fly away but he grabbed my arms and pulled me closer to me, "you want that kiss, don't you?"

"No I don't!"

He chuckled and licked his lips once more, "see? You want the kiss too."

"Too?" I raised an eyebrow feeling a smile forming on my lips without my consent.

He smirked and crushed his lips against mine. Pure bliss. The kiss deepened and I could soon hear a door slamming open and shutting close, the ripping of clothes, and gasp and groans soon filled the room. A kiss in desperate moments can lead to something bigger. It can cause an earthquake, shake your world, and then you have to face the aftershocks.

_**To Be Continued…**_

**I know this is short chapter and kind of weird, but it's late and I wanted to upload this… I know, I have to work on 'Things Change', 'Music=Love' and this one now, but I wanted to give it a shot with ButtercupxButch… Tell me what you think in the reviews. I promise a better chapter soon.**

**Take Care Everyone.**

**PS: BubblesGirl13, your story is on the making.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Update: 3/24/10**

**Aftershock**

A soft noise woke me up. My head was resting on something hard that made a continuous _tut-tut… tut-tut…_ sound. I snuggled closer onto his chest and listened to his heart beat steadily, like a soft lullaby. It was then when I realized.

I opened my eyes abruptly and looked up to notice Butch's relaxed face. His eyes were closed, his facial expressions were relaxed and his breathing was steady, he was still sleeping. I brushed some hairs out of his face, enjoying the feel on his skin against my fingertips. I then bit my lip hard hating myself for that. I was a Powerpuff. He was a Rowdyruff. This couldn't be, but I had let it happen. I had allowed him to kiss me, and I had allowed him… _more_.

I couldn't help myself. I had never felt so alive. This place was dead, the Earth was dead, and I was dead with it. Long ago, the passion to live had extinguished in me. There was nothing left to live for, only my sisters. But not even they could fill the hole in my chest. The never ending hole that consumed me slowly every day since Mitch had left the Earth with the other humans.

In other times, my decision would've been completely different. I would've punched Butch in the mouth so hard that I would've sent him to the center of the world and then I would've washed my mouth with bleach and, if his tongue had misbehaved, I would've rinsed my mouth with acid. But I needed him. He made me feel emotions, after all. Even if it was just anger, it was still a feeling that reminded me that I was alive. He somehow helped me feel alive and last night…

I shivered and got out of bed as quietly as possible. I looked for my clothes and went to the bathroom.

I sighed when my reflection in the mirror showed me what was left of me. My neck was completely covered with red and purple marks (I rolled my eyes already picturing Bubbles and Blossom nagging me about it), my hair was a mess, my lower lip had dry blood and my eyes had bags under them. Butch sure didn't know how to play nice. I sighed ignoring the slight soreness of my legs and quickly got dressed noticing with disappointment that my sweatshirt could no longer be considered one.

_This was actually my favorite…_

I washed my face and got out of the house as quietly as possible, I really didn't want to wake him up. A weird feeling was building up in my stomach, thinking about facing him was… _weird._ I don't know what this feeling is, but I just don't want to see him, I don't want to have to answer to him. I mean, I have never had to answer to anybody, why would I have to answer to _him_? Besides, is not like he hadn't felt…. My eyes went wide when I realized I was… _scared_… of facing him. Why, though? I have never been scared of him, ever! Not even when we were kids and he came back from death with his brothers and our kisses were no longer helpful. Good, is not like I enjoyed kissing him, anyways.

I sighed once more and started my flight towards my new home, which I didn't really considered a home, only a place where I spent the night, a place where I would eat breakfast, snacks and dinner, and a place where I could hang out with my sisters. Other than that, Tech Square meant nothing to me. It was still night, and without the moon, it was really dark outside. I got into Tech Square without setting off the alarm the Genius Dexter had put in case Fuse's monsters tried to ambush us while we slept. They had tried it before, but it hadn't work. I chuckled at the memory of how we finished Eduardo's Fuse replica that night.

I got in my bed hoping to be swept away by sleep, but _his _face appeared in my head.

"_Get out of my head…_" I whispered, closing my eyes feeling more tired than ever before.

* * *

"Buttercup! Wake up!" Nothing like Bubbles squeaky annoying little voice in the morning to start your day.

"What?" I moaned tiredly placing my pillow over my head.

"Blossom and Dexter want to go over the monthly results," she answered pulling the covers off my body and taking the pillow off with a silly smile on her face, "we also want to check how the humans are doing in Him's dimension."

"I'm coming…" I yawned covering my body again.

I heard the door slam shut as I growled pushing the covers off me before I ended up falling asleep again. Oh yeah, I had forgotten about the monthly meetings the red-nerds would organize so we would we updated on how miserably we were doing each month and how much time we had left to fight Fuse before running out of food and supplies. I hated those meetings because it reminded us that we were losing. In fact, I hated the fact that we were losing, period.

I got out of bed and to the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. I noticed the red-purple marks on my neck again, feeling a bit more shocked than before because I had completely forgotten about them. I grabbed some of Bubbles makeup and covered the marks with it. I always used to bother Bubbles about wearing makeup and looking girly to fight Fuse's monsters, it was until Blossom told me that I realized that wearing makeup was Bubbles's way of coping with things. And especially today I was glad this was her way of coping with things.

I brushed my teeth and put on my normal green combat clothes. I looked in the mirror one last time to make sure I had hidden the marks well enough, and just in case I hadn't I let my now long hair down to hide them from me. I winked at my reflection, which was more of a cheer up, and got out of my room.

I walked down the halls of Teq. Square slowly; I honestly didn't look forward to any of their stupid meetings. Like I said, they only point out how bad we're doing and it only depresses me more. Instead of doing this 'evaluation' meetings, we should be getting out there and kick some Fuse butt. Then again, the smarties think we need to 'know our ground in this battle' blah… blah… blah… If it was for me, Fuse would've been out of our planet years ago.

"That's pretty confident thinking," _his_ voice made something cold go down my spine, "you should propose it in the meeting today, I'm pretty sure your sister is desperate enough to accept it."

"Why don't you go and get lost somewhere, Butch?" I crossed my arms over my chest and try to put on my meanest face.

"If only looks could kill," he said smiling. I noticed his eyes travelling down my body and back up to meet my eyes, "no need to blush Buttercup, you _are_ fully dressed," then again, the way he was looking at me made me feel like I wasn't.

"Why don't you go jump off a bridge?"

His smile was wide showing off perfect white teeth, teeth that had dug deep on my skin last night. I felt my body shivering and suddenly I didn't feel as tough as I wanted to.

"Oh come on! Is not like my teeth did something you didn't want, besides you weren't the only one left with bruises from last night…" his smile had turned into a smirk, his voice low and dangerous, "my back still hurts from your clawing."

I felt my cheeks burning. "Go… shoot your… jump off a… _DIE_!" I said through gritted teeth while his smile didn't grow bigger because he had no space left on his face for it.

I wanted to kill him, burn him alive, leave him unable to reproduce… make him suffer! I hated how he could make me lose control so easily-

"Is not that hard, really, all I have to do is _tease_ you a bit and boy! You lose control," there was a spark in his eyes that made me wonder what he was really talking about.

"Get out of my head!" I tried to slap him but he caught my wrist, either he was too fast or he read my mind (I've been planning to slap him for a while).

"It's both actually," he said not letting go of my wrist, "even if I couldn't read your mind I'm still faster than you."

"Shut. Up." I tried to pull my wrist away, but instead he pinned it to the wall.

"You left," he said, I blinked in confusion. "This morning… you were gone…"

Realization hit me and my mouth was left in a silent 'O'. I looked away from his gaze.

"I… I had to go… my sisters… Blossom… would question me as a criminal if she found out I didn't spend the night here," it's the truth; I would never see the end of it with Blossom.

"That's not the whole truth though," I felt his hand on my cheek as he turned my face slowly to make me face him.

He was right, it wasn't the whole truth but how could I tell him-? I stopped my train of thought as he arched an eyebrow.

_His eyes are green, my eyes are green too. Why do we look so much alike? I mean, sugar, spice and everything nice is nothing alike to snips, snails and puppy dog tails. If I had a twin brother, would he look like Butch? If he had a twin sister would she look like me? Does Brute look like me anymore? What happened to Brute's dimension? Is Fuse nice in her dimension or is he evil in that dimension too? I wonder if-_

"Enough," Butch said obviously annoyed by my gibberish. "Actually, gibberish I can stand, but the nonsense you were thinking of…" I can still push his buttons, that made me feel a little better. "I'm glad you take pleasure in my pain… did I mention you clawing me last-"

"You did," I cut him off trying not to think about last night.

"Twin brother, really?" I blushed feeling stupid. It was real nonsense, but seriously why- "never mind I asked,"

"Haven't you ever wondered-?"

"No, I haven't," I could tell he didn't want me to start my nonsense again, this time out loud. "You haven't answered my question,"

"I did," I said and he put on his 'no you didn't' face, "I _did_! You asked me to answer your question, but you never asked me to answer your question _honestly,_"

He rolled his eyes, "why did you leave this morning? Answer _honestly,_"

"Why is it so important?" his hand started doing small circles on my cheek. I had forgotten about his hand.

"I want to know," his voice was low and dangerous again. I felt my knees shaking as his lips pressed softly against my neck, "makeup, really?"

"I would never hear the end of it with Blossom," I tried, and probably failed, to sound tough.

"You did fail," Butch said smirking again.

I rolled my eyes and my communicator rang.

Butch let go of my wrist as I answered, "Talk to me,"

"_Where are you? The meeting started ten minutes ago!" _Blossom's voice sure was a pleasure to hear.

Butch chuckled probably at what I was really thinking, "I got stuck… in bed," a smirk spread across Butch's face.

"You _would_ be stuck in bed if you had stayed with me this morning," he whispered.

I was about to cuss him off as my cheeks burned again, _"Well then, hurry up! And if you see that good for nothing Rowdyruff Butch, tell him to hurry up as well."_

"Roger that," I said and put the communicator in my back pocket.

"It's really nice what your sister thinks of me," Butch said faking to be hurt.

"She's not the only one," I smirked, "I could tell you what I really think about you but you could simply read it off my mind-"

"You think I look sexy without a shirt on, you enjoy my teeth biting your neck, you love running your fingers through my hair- and don't say it's a lie because I read it off your mind last night."

"I don't know what I was thinking last night!" I said feeling my cheeks burning for probably the twentieth time.

"Fifth, actually."

"Let's go, I don't want Blossom biting my head off," I started walking to the meeting room with Butch following willingly behind.

When we finally made it to the meeting room, we were twenty minutes late and Blossom was eyeing me like she was going to kill me. Brick had his eyes on Butch studying him, Butch shrugged and Brick just rolled his eyes. I wish Blossom would brush this incident off as easily, I bet I'm receiving a two hour long lecture after this for being late. I sat in my usual spot next to Bubbles as Butch sat next to Boomer.

"_Now_ that you're finally here," Blossom continued an already started conversation. "I think that according to what the results are and the current situations we should…"

Blah… Blah… Blah… Results… Situations… Talk… Talk… Talk… _This_ is gibberish! I actually want to go out and fight. Talking is not going to get us _anywhere_ at this point. We need to fight and fight hard! Not sit and have meetings about fighting. This was sure a waste of time. I wish I had being able to skip this dumb meetings.

"_You _would_ be stuck in bed if you had stayed with me this morning,"_

That sounds so tempting right now. I mean in the sense of skipping the meeting and not in the sense of being stuck in bed with Butch. I heard a faint chuckle and notice Butch hiding a smile. He was reading my mind!

_Yellow chicken… yellow teeth… yellow hair… wait… that's blond… like Bubbles's hair. Bubbles is sweet, really sweet, but I can tell she's been struggling a lot to stay true to her naïve and innocent nature. She wasn't as innocent as I remembered. The world around her- us- had darkened completely. Blossom is always smart, that's why she wasn't happy either with the Rowdys working with us, and she's still expecting an ambush from them or something of the sort. The professor must be really tired; this is the fifth time he yawns in seven minutes. Minutes, there are sixty seconds in one minute, sixty minutes in one hour, 24 hours in one day, 7 days in a week…_

"What do you think, Buttercup?" Blossom's voice rang across the room.

Crap. "I think you should… do what… you think is best… because… you're the smart one for a reason?"

"You weren't listening, were you?" Busted. Blossom arched an eyebrow waiting for my response, Bubbles was looking at me worriedly and the Professor was shaking his head in disapproval, I could also see a smirk on Butch's lips.

I sighed, "What makes you-?"

"I just said that we should train the humans to help us fight and you said nothing," Blossom looked at me expectantly, annoyed even. She hated being ignored in moments of crisis, especially after me being so late.

"That's because you know I would jump in and say 'Heck Yeah' but I want to know what the smart people think," bull crap, I didn't care what the smart people think.

If it were for me the humans would've been fighting alongside us since the very beginning. Those lazy people have always needed my sisters and me to do their dirty job and kick all the villains out of town. Now it's their turn they face the struggles of fighting for their lives and living up to the expectations of always being strong and under control. But then again, they would be more of a hold back than any help. We can't fight Fuse's monsters _and_ make sure the humans are safe at the same time.

"The smart people think we should make the humans fight," Dexter said as if talking to someone retarded.

"Talk to me like that again and the smart person is going to get hit so hard by the strong person that will change the smart person's sexual orientation-"

"Buttercup!" Blossom was obviously mad. I could hear some sniggers in the table.

"I think we should leave the humans out of the way," I said as serious as I could. "Yeah we're down on numbers, but we _are_ holding our ground. Bringing the humans into this would only make things worse in the sense of having to lower our defenses to get people to train the humans. Who are going to train them? We need the best fighters in the line in case of one of Fuse's surprise attacks."

"We could train them during the night," numbuh Three offered.

"Fuse's attacks also happen during the night," numbuh one said, to be honest I'm glad Fuse didn't attack while Butch and I… never mind.

"Besides, if we train the humans during the night, our defenses would be too tired to fight during the day," numbuh five said toying with her cap. What's up with the red caps?

"Al right then," the Professor stood up, "everyone against training the humans say 'nay',"

"Nay," only the smart people didn't say 'nay' which were about seven, nine if you count the monkey and the walking computer.

"I think we could balance it out," Jack said, getting our attention, "I would stay back and train the humans while we can have someone else take my shift. The person before me could go half the time more, while the person after me could start half the time earlier."

There was a problem with that was that I had the shift before Jack and Butch had the shift after.

"Once I have trained the humans, any of the TND (Teens Next Door) can test them and they decided whether they're ready for battle or not,"

"I second that," Dexter said and was followed by more and more people.

Soon enough everyone in the room was in favor of Jack's idea. I couldn't help but frown my disagreement. I still think humans would get in the way and slow us down, but this is how democracy works.

"Won't the humans get in the way?" Butch's voice shut everybody's enthusiastic conversations. "Everyone in this room is used to fighting and being on the battle field, when we started fighting Fuse it wasn't anything new. The humans, on the other hand, have never fought for their lives. I don't know about other cities but in Townsville, every time a monster attacked, the people would run around as if screaming would save their lives."

"The adults were completely oblivious to our activities," numbuh two continued, "the few adults who knew about our organizations were against us, and even then they still lost fights with little ten-to-twelve year olds."

"We can't afford having people freeze of fear when a Fuse monster is attacking them," Butch continued, "I honestly don't care about saving anyone else's ass than my own and maybe even my brothers' but I hope no one is expecting to take a hit for a human."

"No matter how well trained they are, when fear takes over plenty lives could be lost," numbuh one said getting deep in thought, and so was Jack.

"In that case, we will leave this meeting for another day," Brick said speaking for the first time, "I don't know who was the genius to decide at what time to have this meeting, but in case no one else has noticed, we have left our lines completely defenseless for an hour and a half,"

Everyone gasped and ran out the door to take their positions in case Fuse launched a surprise attack.

"I still think we should train the humans," Jack's voice was low and thoughtful; "fear is just a state of mind that can be taught to get over."

"I don't want anyone getting in my way when I'm kicking Fuse's ass," Boomer said, only my sisters, his brothers, Dexter and Jack were in the room.

"Big words, little bro," Butch said smirking patting his head.

"We will think of this tomorrow," Dexter said cleaning his glasses.

"Great idea, boy genius, is it going to be before, during or after one of Fuse's attack?" Brick said making me smirk. Dexter wasn't as smart as he bragged about.

"I accept I didn't think… _everything_… through, but tomorrow I'll have a more effective way,"

"If you say so," Brick said dropping a pen I never noticed he was holding on the table.

He stood up and walked out of the meeting room followed by Boomer and Butch. Dexter walked out frustrated most likely at how easily Brick could outsmart him and find flaws to his 'flawless' plans. Blossom followed, but not without giving me the 'I'm still giving you that speech' look. Bubbles said something about taking her spot in Teq. Square and I stayed back to talk to Jack. He had been my master before, and the way he was looking at me while Brick and Dexter talked told me he wanted to speak to me.

"Buttercup, you're probably the best fighter there is in this whole place," he sighed, "do you think training the people would get in the way?"

"I agree with Butch to a hundred percent," I answered; after all, he only said what I was too frustrated to say.

"Then, don't you think it would be easier if you helped me?"

"Excuse me?"

"Buttercup, I need as much help as I can get," Jack said looking calm as ever, "you, out of all people, should now that holding our ground won't be enough. I need your help, I will go as I stated on the meeting and stay back to train the humans. You can go an extra hour of your shift and Butch, another amazing fighter, can start an hour earlier. You have a day off Wednesday and, if it's not too much to ask, I would like to ask you to give that day up to help me train the people."

I bit my lip, Wednesday was the only day had for myself and the only time I could relax, but then again, Jack was right, we needed all the help that we could get. "S-sure…"

"Thank you," Jack said with a smile and I walked out of the meeting room; Jack following me.

I sighed tiredly as I realized it was barely 10:00am… I still had a _long_ day to go.

"Hey babe, missed me?" I certainly had not.

_**To Be Continued…**_

**First off I want to apologize for the late update. I just want to let you know that I'm really sorry and I kind of don't have internet anymore so what I'm going to do is write the update of my fanfics and when I get internet again, hopefully I'll update right away. I'm on spring break for two weeks anyway.**

**Take Care Everyone.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Updated: 5/9/10**

**Chapter Edited: 5/10/10  
**

**Warning: Slight cussing...**

**Aftershock**

"_What_ are you doing _here_?" I felt rage running through my veins.

"Is this the way you treat _all _your _exes_?" Ace's slithery voice made something cold run down my spine.

"No, you're the only one with that privilege," I said annoyed.

"Ouch! Is that the thanks I get for all the sacrifices I made to give you the glory-?"

"I already had as a Powerpuff." I cut him off before his train of guilt hit me, "and don't put yourself as the victim, because you're not!"

"Wow, you really are an ungrateful bitch," I could see through his dark shades anger flaring in his eyes. "After I gave you a home and took you in, you still treat me as if I was a monster,"

"You took advantage of the fact that I had _no memory_ to exploit me like your little rag doll," I felt my checks burning in anger.

"You _were_ in your five senses when you became my girlfriend," I felt vomit rising up my throat, "memory or not, you enjoyed my kisses."

I made a disgusted face and really thought I would throw up right then and there. "And you kept me from my family and sisters-"

"They were keeping you from reaching your full potential-"

"And making me a rock star helped me reach my full potential, how?"

He shrugged, "You weren't receiving orders from your carrot head sister-"

"Because I was receiving orders from you!" I was tired of this pointless conversation, "You haven't answered my question."

He rolled his eyes and chuckled, "The human council in Him's dimension decided that the humans should be allowed to see what's going on in the world, more like," he chuckled, "what's left of it, really Buttercup, you seem to be losing your… _touch_,"

Oh. _Hell_. No.

"How _dare _you?" I grabbed him by the collar of his shirt slamming him against the wall… hard, "You don't know what it's been like having to live this battle. You left running like a little girl to hide in Him's dimension while I stayed back and watch the world get covered in slime" I dug my nails deep on his neck feeling blood wet his shirt, "You don't have the right to come and criticize what I've done to save the world when all you did was hide like the little ugly sissy princess you are!"

"Buttercup," Jack's voice brought me back to reality. "All humans must go back to Him's dimension."

I looked at Jack who was looking at me with disappointment and sympathy to then realize a crowd of people were watching the whole scene. I let go of Ace, who ran like a rat behind Jack for protection, and walked out of the building to take my position in Sector V's east defense line.

My nails were stained with Ace's dry blood and the anger was still rushing through my veins. I hate Ace. I hate his gang. I hate Fuse. I hate my life. I'm only eighteen for crying out loud! And yet, I feel like I was over a hundred years old. Every day was always protecting Sector V without a single 'thank you', every day was having to listen to nagging Blossom, annoying Bubbles, frustrating Dexter, useless Mojo Jojo and loving Professor. Every day would end with a final battle between me and a pack of sneaky spawns and then I would go to bed and sleep my problems away.

Except for last night.

I bit my lip hard enough to draw blood to it to stop the memories flooding to my head. I had to stop thinking about what happen with Butch and start thinking on only kicking Fuse's gooey ass and his monsters out of here. I need to stop crossing paths with anything related to Butch, including his self, and get the planet Earth back to how it used to be before everything started.

I stopped right in one of the Tree house bridges and waited for the action to begin, which usually took hours for a Fuse monster to be dumb enough to attack. I sighed and looked at the sky. A small smile appeared on my lips as a faint ghost of a memory made me want to fly again just for fun. I remembered when my sisters and I had to patrol the city. I would just fly and enjoy the feeling of the air hitting my face. Those where the good times. Yet, the night with Butch had become the best experience of my life. I dug my nails deep onto the palms of my hands to stop my stupid thinking. What was wrong with me?

"Buttercup!" Numbuh Five's voice got me out of thought.

"What's up Abigail,"

She chuckled, "I hear you scared the life out of that Gangrene boy," she chuckled again, "whatever he did, remind me to never do it to you,"

"I will," I said still aware of Ace's dry blood on my nails, I should've washed my hands before getting here. "Do you need something?"

"I do, but you ain't gonna like it," she sighed as if not sure to tell me. "We know you're going to help Jack with his plan by giving your day off up and some of the other great fighters have decided to do the same thing. Numbuh Four will train the humans Monday, Ben and his arsenal of martians will train the humans Tuesday, you will train the humans Wednesday, Jack will be training the humans Thursdays, Numbuh one will train the humans Friday and I will train them Saturdays. "

"So, what's the problem?" I somehow knew where this was going, and I didn't like it.

"We still need someone to train the humans on Sundays," she got nervous for a reason, "we kinda got the candidate for it already but it is more than likely he'll say no,"

"Your. Point. Is?" I didn't like it at all.

"Buttercup, we want to ask you to ask Butch to train the humans on his day off," so far for not crossing paths with Butch again.

"No," I said curtly.

"No?"

"No, I won't ask him that," I felt my stomach twist at the thought of asking _anything_ from Butch, "besides, what makes you think he'll say yes to _me_?"

"Because you know him longer than any of us="

"That's why he hates me!" I felt frustration build up inside of me, "we used to be _enemies_!"

"That's why I think you should do it," a sly smirk formed on her lips, "you won't touch your heart to beat him into helping us."

"Why don't you ask your sister to do it?" Cree was an exceptional fighter, almost as good as me.

"Because she's protecting the European continent from Fuse," sadness flashed through her eyes, "looks like Fuse's army had expanding farther through the world."

"What about Juniper or Juniper's grandma?" Juniper was another great fighter, and Juniper's grandma was even better, that lady might be old, but she can kick any kind of butt, she even used to be Jack's master.

"Juniper if protecting Asia and Juniper's grandma is with… well… Juniper," she started rubbing her fingers on her chin as if in deep thought, "what's going on, Buttercup?"

"What's going on with what?"

"Seems to me like you're scared of facing Butch,"

"I'm _not_ scared of facing _anybody_!" I felt my cheeks burning in anger, the only reason why I didn't attack her right then and there like I attacked Ace was because I actually consider_ed_ her my friend.

"Then prove it," another sly smirk took over her lips, "talk to Butch, and if he says no, you don't have to talk to him again."

"Fine," I said exasperated, there goes my 'tranquil' life, "but if he accepts he will be _your_ responsibility!"

"Agreed," she said and walked back into the Tree house with a victorious smile on her face I was dying to rip off.

I sighed already regretting accepting talking to Butch, but this was something I wasn't going to allow. I wasn't going to let her think I was 'scared'. Ace already thought my efforts had been useless, I didn't need Abigail to think I was too scared to take one for the team.

After that, the day passed by with barely any fun of kicking spawn butt, and fairly quickly to my bad luck, soon I would have to face Butch and ask him a favor. When my shift was over, Numbuh Three came to where I was standing and waved a goodbye to me as I flew away to Genius Grove. I really don't know who was dumb enough to put Numbuh Three as our night shift defense, but then again, better her than me.

I flew quickly to Mandark's house, to get this over with as fast as I can, and slammed in the room where Brick, Mojo, and Mandark were talking about some plans on the table. I really don't know who was the idiot that decided to allow three evil geniuses to live under the same roof.

"What are you doing here?" Mojo's great manners never failed to appeal me.

"Don't you know to knock on a door before walking in a room?" Mandark said trying, and failing miserably, to hide a manila envelope with his ridiculous cape.

"I need your good for nothing brother," I said to Brick ignoring the other two completely.

"Which one?" he asked arching an eyebrow, making me chuckle, he had a good sense of humor every once in a, very weird, while.

"The brainless muscleman," I said making him smirk.

"Upstairs, third door on the left,"

I flew upstairs and knocked on the door Brick had told me. Few seconds passed, and deciding I wasn't going to wait for his lazy butt to open, I opened the door and walked in. His room was cleaner and emptier than I expected, there were hardly any clothes on the floor, except for a pair of washed out jeans and a black t-shirt, and he seemed to have everything in order. The only messy thing he had was his undone bed, which had the sheets and covers knotted in one corner.

Since Butch wasn't here, I decided to look around to make sure there weren't any secret plans to destroy my sisters and me, or betray the little civilization we had, lying around somewhere. I looked through his closet and drawers to find everything a normal, super strong chemical X, teenage boy would have: shirts jeans, socks… boxers. I sat on the bed, and was about to look in the drawer he had next to his bed, the door slammed open to reveal a barely showered, towel wrapped, semi naked Butch.

"Can I come in my room now?" his smirk grew wider, "or are you still looking for secret plans?"

Of course he would be reading my mind, "why don't you read my mind and find out?"

"I would but, where's the fun in that?" he had a playful smile on his fully kissable lips.

I felt my cheeks burn again as I looked down to avoid his gaze and bit my lip hard again to stop myself from looking like a stupid love-struck teenage girl.

"What do you want, Buttercup?" Butch sounded annoyed, neither one of us was very patient.

I looked up to look at him in the eyes so I wouldn't look like a total coward in front of him but my gaze wouldn't look away from his chest. I felt body shivering and started feeling feverish. I shook my head and looked at him in the face to find that annoying- sexy- smirk on his lips.

"Aren't you going to get dressed?" I asked looking at the window.

"Do you want me to?" there was humor in his voice, "You seem to be enjoying the view,"

"Just. Get. Dressed!" I said and turned around to face the wall to give him some privacy.

Soon I felt his hands on my hips as his lips caressed, and tickled, my neck, "Why are you acting like this, Buttercup?" his lips kissed their way up to my ear, and his voice turned dangerously low, "Is not like there's a part of my body you haven't seen,"

"Get dressed," I whispered, pathetically.

"I am," he said letting go of me while I turned around in time to see him pick the black t-shirt from the floor and put it on. "Now, what do you want?"

"I need to ask you a…" I swallowed my pride, "I need to ask you… a… f-favor…"

A smirk appeared on his lips again, "A favor? The great Buttercup Utonium is asking _me_ a favor?"

"I'm not doing it because I want to," I said, and it was the truth I didn't want to look like a coward in front of Abby. "I-_we_ need you to help us train the humans on your day off,"

"Um… no,"

"No?"

"Nope, no,"

"Why not?" I felt anger rushing through my veins, can't he see how vital this is… Karma's a bitch.

"It's the only day I get to sleep in," he said shrugging sitting on the edge of his window, "I happen to have the night shift, courtesy of your carrot head sister, so if you feel like sneaking out tonight, you can keep me company."

_Carrot head… people need to be more original…_

"Ok then," he smirked, "your _rednerd_ sister gave me the night shift so I would be too tired during the day to actually fight any of you in case of a betrayal move planned by my rednerd brother."

"You _could_ sleep during the day,"

"Do you know how hard it is to sleep when everybody else's thoughts are trying to creep into your mind?" he started rubbing the sides of his forehead as if having a migraine. "Mandark is always thinking about how to hook up with Dexter's sister, Dee Dee, Mojo's gibberish is a 24/7 thing to a point where he needs to think of the coefficient of something in a 'yes' or 'no' question, and Brick is like a freaking super computer that downloads information every freaking second. Boomer used to be the only one who wouldn't bother me much since he hardly ever thought, but your bubble-head sister has been all over his thoughts lately."

"Wait, are you trying to say that Boomer likes Bubbles?"

"I don't know. I try to ignore every single thought when I'm trying to sleep," he shrugged, "why does it matter, anyway? You and I already crossed the line."

I felt my cheeks burn in anger and embarrassment, "which is never happening again,"

"_Right_," he said not bothering to hide a smile, "which reminds me, why did you do it?"

"Why did I do, what?"

"Do you really want me to spell it out for you?" he arched an eyebrow as understanding hit me.

"I... I don't know," I said looking away again.

_Great, I bet I sounded like an easy girl who gives it up to anybody for no good reason..._"

"You _don't _know?" he asked arching an eyebrow.

I felt my cheeks burning in anger, "why did _you_ do it?"

A smirk spread across his face. "I'm a guy, Buttercup, I would do it with _anybody_ from the opposite sex,"

I felt as if a bucket of cold water full of ravenous piranhas had been thrown at me. Of course he would, he isn't _any_ guy, he's an evil Rowdyruff who doesn't cares about how much his words can hurt a Powerpuff. Yet, I expected this same question and same answer from him, I guess I had just hoped he wouldn't have been that much of an ass about it after taking my virginity. Then again, what else could I expect from my childhood enemy? He probably didn't even care whether I was virgin or not as long as he had what he wanted. But this was my fault. I shouldn't have allowed him to kiss me in the first place. I should've punched himand ignore the fact that that kiss had reminded me that I was only eighteen and not over a hundred years old.

"What would I get for helping you?" he finally spoke breaking the silence between us, his smirk was still there.

"We would get this fight over with faster," _and you won't have to talk to me ever again after that._

"That's not what I want-"

"You don't want to kick Fuse out of planet?" I felt surprised by his response, I would expect _him_ to want Fuse out of here so he wouldn't have to play the 'hero' any longer.

He looked at me confused, as if I had told him the stupidest thing in the world, "I do want Fuse out of our planet," his smirk returned as he looked at me with a hungry look on his face, "then again, _we_ would've never spent the night together if it hadn't been for him," his smirk grew wider, "I kinda have to thank him for that."

I felt my blood boil in anger and embarrassment. "What _do_ you want then?"

He stood up and walked up to me. He placed a hand on my hip while the other one grabbed a lock of my hair. I looked up at him and was about to protest when he brushed his lips against mine softly enough to tease but hard enough to feel. I deepened the kiss and started the war on determining who the boss of that kiss was. He wrapped his arm around my waist pulling me closer to him and the other one got a good grip on the back of my head, deepening the kiss even more, if possible. My hands went directly to his hair caressing it. When we were running out of air he pulled away but continued kissing my neck and sucked a certain spot that made me go weak on the knees.

"Are you… going to help… us… oh… train the humans?" I asked breathing hard when he licked his way up from my neck to my lips.

He didn't answer. His lips met mine making me completely forget what I was thinking and what had brought me here in the first place. I caught his bottom lip between my teeth and chewed it softly to then sucked it. I then broke away the kiss and placed a hand on his mouth, since he was already moving closer to continue it, making him groan.

"Answer me," I ordered, our gasps where echoing in the room.

"I will help you, only if you promise to sneak out with me tonight," he said looking at me in the eyes.

I would be stupid to say no.

_**To Be Continued…**_

**Sorry if it's short, I typed this in two hours trying to update something. My computer is dead so I'm using my brother's, which isn't very common. So you might be seeing a lot of short and late updates until my computer is fixed. I will fix this chapter later on and try to update a longer chapter.**

**Edit: I tried to make Butch sound a bit more of an a-hole... hope it worked.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Updated: 5-28-11**

**Aftershock**

Then again, Bubbles was the stupid one…

I pulled away and pushed him away from me making him fall on his bed.

"Feisty," he smirked and I only rolled my eyes at him.

"So, what did you say you want for helping us train the humans?" I acted as if the last ten minutes hadn't happened as I forced my body to _not_ run back to his arms.

He looked at me with shock and anger and shook his head as he got off the bed.

"What?" I asked rather annoyed by his reaction.

"_You_ are annoyed by _my_ reaction?" he sounded really annoyed, "I _am _annoyed, _really _annoyed, and I'm the only one who has the right to be."

"How can you possibly annoyed?"

He looked at me as if I was stupid. "I'm starting to think you are," he said replying to my thoughts like he _always_ did. _This_ gave _me_ the right to be the _only _one annoyed in this room. "Ha! You really think so? Just so you now, _teasers_ happen to be more annoying than mind-readers."

_Teasers? How are teasers- oh…_

"Yeah," he said with a sly smirk on his face, "glad to know Bubbles is the stupid one,"

"Shut up," I said annoyed, "are you going to help us or not?"

He just sighed. "I'll think about it and get back to you later," he opened the window and looked at me with annoyance, "now if you don't mind I have to start my shift, I'll see you around."

And with that he jumped out of the window, a green streak of light following behind, making me feel somewhat empty. I decided to do the same rather than receiving the creep-tastic honor of being greeted by Mojo and his minions again. I got out of Mandarks' house and took my way back to Tech Square to take a long well deserved rest.

Today hadn't been the best of my days and I wanted it to end as soon as possible. Seeing Ace was the worst way I could've ever started my day. He and I used to date, and I had strong feelings for him then. He was the older bad boy that had noticed me, not smart Blossom or gorgeous Bubbles, but _me,_ the six-year-old tomboy_._ Even though it was pretty pedophile-ish of him (more like, extremely), I thought we had something. Turns out he was just using me to get to my sisters and destroy all of us.

Then, after I fought Mojo-Jojo and lost my memory he took me in and made me a rock star. Then we were together as a couple until I remembered who I was and realized what was going on and what he had done to me. He didn't rape me or anything, which is surprising now that I think about it, but he did lie to me for who knows what. I don't think he really wanted me to be a rock star, I think all that he wanted was to keep me away from my sisters. And yet, the reason why I hate him now was because I thought he loved me and that he only wanted the best for me. I was wrong and it pissed me off. _He_ pissed me off. Fighting Fuse everyday was difficult enough and having _him_ criticize my skills only made things worse.

That was why I needed to rest and shut my brain off for the day. Unfortunately, when I got in my room through the window I realized that wouldn't happen. Remember that two-hour long nag I told you I would get? Well, it's sitting at the edge of my bed with her arms crossed and a pissed off look on her face.

"Hey Red, what you doing up so late?" I said as I got in my room through the window.

"Where were you last night?" Crap. She looked like she was about to kill me, and she would do it if it wasn't because I was one of the best fighters around, "The security camera shows you came home at 3:55 am last night. Where were you?"

"Out kicking some Fuse monster butt," I lied but kept my face straight as she scanned for lies. Did I mention Brick's new power was detecting when someone was lying to him, it's just as annoying with Butch's mind reading.

"Buttercup that's _dangerous_! You could've been killed!"

"Don't exaggerate-"

"Exaggerate?" she was mad, "I'm not _exaggerating_ Buttercup! If it hadn't been for Butch yesterday-"

"-I was doing just fine-"

"-You would've been killed by those spawns!" Blossom was blushing in anger; I guess it runs in the family.

"What's your point then?" I crossed my arms and try to get as serious as possible.

"My point is, you're not a child anymore, you need to grow up," Blossom's voice was angry and she seemed to be working hard to not explode again, "Getting yourself poisoned by the spawns, sneaking out to fight more spawns _on your own,_ and _attacking_ a civilian are not things an eighteen-year-old should be doing."

"You're right," _Getting poisoned with alcohol, sneaking out to make out with my boyfriend and attacking the principal are things an eighteen-year-old should be doing._ Well, maybe not but you get my point. "I'll apologize to Ace if that's what you want,"

"You're missing the point," she said exasperated, "It's not about apologizing to Ace, it's about you getting yourself into trouble that could potentially _kill you._"

"Look, I promise I won't get myself into unnecessary trouble," I was getting annoyed by this, "I could've gotten killed, I get it,"

"Do you, Buttercup?" all of the sudden, Blossom looked older and exhausted; this was hitting her as hard as me, maybe even harder.

"Look, I know I'm not the most responsible person in a thousand mile ratio, but…" I never looked away from anyone, I thought of it as cowardly but this time I did look away from my sister to look at my fidgeting hands, "but this is what I _need_ to not go insane. Bubbles had makeup and you have the nerd boy-"

"-Dexter-"

"… I have nothing," I said feeling emptiness. It had been this feeling of emptiness that pushed me to Butch in the first place. "Fighting is the only thing that keeps me busy and not in my room crying over a life that might never come back."

Bullshit. Even if it's the last thing I do, I will kick Fuse out of here. Unfortunately that means I will have to deal with Butch and he seemed pretty mad.

"That's not true, Buttercup," she said reaching out her hand to put it on my shoulder.

"Don't come to me with that, you know I hate it," I said backing away making her shake her head.

"Jack wants to speak to you and it cannot wait for tomorrow, apparently," Blossom said in a very tired voice, "Bubbles and I will accompany you there, and then Jack and Coop will bring you here,"

I snorted, "I don't need an escort,"

"Don't give me that," she said rolling her eyes. "I'm going to get Bubbles and then we'll be on our way. _Wait_ here."

Blossom got out of my room and so did I. I really didn't need to have to fly with my sisters tonight, Bubbles would feel the tenseness in the air and it would worry her. The least thing I need is a worried- nagging- Bubbles keeping me from my sleep. Besides, I needed to talk to Butch to ensure he would help us train the human and I wouldn't be able to if my sisters take me directly to Jack. Not that I wanted him to help, but we _needed_ as much back up as we could. Maybe then we could finally get Fuse out of our planet and we could go back to our good old times before this all happened.

… _We would've never spent the night together if it hadn't been for him…_

I shook my head only being able to agree with him. If we hadn't been in this situation, if Fuse hadn't attacked our planet this- _us_- wouldn't have happened. I would've killed him, or he would've killed himself before going as far as he did with _me_. I know for sure he would still hate my guts if the scenario was different, maybe he even still does. His brothers and he would still create mayhem on the city and my sister and I would go around kicking their butts without breaking a sweat.

I flew towards Jack's home at Goat's Junk Yard where old Megas stood forever shut down covered in goo. Coop cried his death like that of a brother and vowed to never leave his side. He's always at the entrance of the portal waiting for the right time to go in there and save whatever is left of his metallic friend. Yep, Fuse had taken the best of all of us leaving us with a huge fucked up hole inside of us hard to fill. Our dreams for the future had been put on hold because of him and we weren't getting any younger.

Butch had to keep them safe in case Dexter's portal failed and Fuse's monsters broke free. It was his duty to ensure Fuse didn't expand any centimeter farther into whatever was left of the planet Earth. It was hard to admit but he was doing a hell of a job, ever since his brothers and he came to help, Fuse's expansion decreased significantly. Of course, I would never admit how good he was out loud.

"You don't have to," he was sitting on a branch of a tree I happened to fly by while looking for him.

I rolled my eyes and landed on a branch at a different tree facing him. "Of course, you can simply read it off my mind,"

"Blossom is pretty pissed off at you," he said obviously amused by whatever he was getting off my sister's head, "who knew she had such a broad insulting vocabulary? It's even broader than yours."

I bit my lip, I guess it couldn't have hurt to wait for Bubbles and her, but I really needed to talk to Butch.

"Why should I help?"

"We already went through this," I rolled my eyes, "Besides, you said-"

"I know what I said, but this isn't what I had in mind," he said apparently still annoyed. "Scratch out 'apparently'."

"I'm sorry Butchie, I _can't_ read minds," I purred smirking at him making him roll his eyes.

"Have I told you how much I hate teasers?" he smirked making me blush remembering what happened a couple hours ago.

"Are you going to help, or not?" I tried changing the subject to more important things in the priority list.

"Getting laid is my number one priority," he said with that sexy smirk of his making me want to kick his ass.

I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, "If you're not going to help just say it so I can go to someone else-"

"Who?" his eyes shone with malice and his smirk didn't get any wider because there was no more space on his face left. "Who else can train the humans, Blossom? I mean, she already has enough things on her plate from collecting data to doing her shift. Or maybe _Bubbles_? Yeah, let your _crybaby_ sister do it, I bet the humans will be _hardcore_ after training with her."

I bit my lip, "Brick could train them,"

"You really think so?" he arched an eyebrow and seemed to be trying hard to not laugh out loud. "You're very observant, Buttercup."

"The humans can have they day off Sunday-"

"Sure, because all the humans need is more rest," he said smirking.

I bit my lip refusing to admit the fact that he was the only one that could help, which was a longer synonym for defeat. Bubbles _could_ be vicious if she wanted to, but her day off was Monday and we already had someone to train the humans for that day. Blossom _does _have a lot of things on her plate to then go and train the humans as well, not to mention that her "day off" is on Thursday. There had to be someone else, maybe Dexter-

"Please tell me you're not _serious_," Butch's laughter pulled me from my thoughts making me blush.

"Who is there?" Jack came out of his house with Coop following behind.

I found it funny how they couldn't see me but I didn't blame them, regardless of the goo the trees were growing strong and thick with a lot of leaves on them. If it hadn't been for my super sight I would've never seen Butch sitting on the tree branch. I was going to show Jack where Butch and I were, but before I could Butch pinned me against the tree trunk with a hand on my mouth.

I placed my hands on his chest to try and push him away but we wouldn't bulge an inch. He pressed his body harder against mine making us disappear deeper into the shadows of the branches.

_What the hell are you doing?_ I glared at him and did my best to try and bite his hand but I couldn't.

I somehow managed to look over where Jack and Coop were. I managed to see they hadn't moved an inch and Jack seemed to sense our presence since he didn't put his guard down. The slightest noise and he would attack whatever had created the noise.

…_It's about you getting yourself into trouble that could potentially _kill you… Blossom's nonsense made more sense now.

"There are Fuse cloners in the area," Butch whispered in my ear making shivers run down my spine. His warm breath against my skin was bringing back unwanted memories from the other night. "Stop that!" he whispered in my ear.

I couldn't help but smirk against his hand; I had found a loop hole to his "awesome" power. He glared daggers at me but before I could do anything to piss him off, there was an explosion about ten feet away from us; Jack had destroyed a Fuse cloner. Those little monsters took the DNA of the Heroes and then sent them to Fuse to turn them into Fuse Clones. In all of this time, I had never seen a Rowdyruff Fuse Clone.

"That's because Fuse doesn't know who we are," Butch whispered looking down at Jack attacking more Fuse cloners. "He knows we exist, he knows there's something that has stopped him from moving forward but he doesn't know _what_ it is."

There were more explosions and I felt the urge to get into that fight. There was an urging need in my body, an adrenaline rush that pushed me to take part in the fight as well. Unfortunately for me, Butch was still holding me against the tree with his hand on my mouth keeping me away from all of the fun.

"I'll give you fun," he said with a naughty smirk on his face as he pressed his lips against my neck.

I felt my knees grow weak as something warm build up in my stomach. His free hand started making small circles on my bare thigh, which reminded me to start wearing sweats, as more explosions could be heard nearby.

_This is not what I had in mind…_

"Sorry BC, I _can _read minds, I simply don't care,"

"Where the hell is Butch?" Coop said out loud as if answering a silent prayer.

"Excuse you," he said in a fake hurt tone and a sly smile on his face "you were enjoying this, and don't bother denying it."

I rolled my eyes as another explosion went off, this one a whole lot closer.

"I can't help if there are Fuse Cloners nearby," Butch whispered, "It would give away our cover."

I rolled my eyes at him starting to think he was pretty stupid himself, _if you let me go I could help them, Sherlock._

He glared at me and stepped back setting me free. "We're not done,"

"I think we are," I said getting ready to help Jack and Coop. It felt so good to talk.

"I won't help you with the humans," he snorted and then smirked crossing his arms over his chest.

"Now that's _blackmailing_," I glared daggers at him.

"It's what I do for a living," he shrugged, his eyes shone with malice. There was another explosion nearby, "Your call,"

"We'll talk later," I said and flew off to help Jack and Coop with the Fuse monsters that started surrounding Goat's Junk Yard.

_**To Be Continued…**_

**Yes, I did delete the last chapter and made a new one because I wasn't happy with it. This chapter I'm a little happier with. Kind of… I'm not that happy with it and I cut it off there because I had nothing else to write about and if I "left it for later" later would be another year. So yeah…**

**So it's been a long while since I last updated this but I have to say that I just lost interest in this story. But hey, a story is a promise to my readers that I have to finish regardless of anything. By the way, my computer got a virus so I lost all of my files.**

**No, Aftershock and Things Change are not officially off Hiatus yet, I just updated a chapter and hope to update another one soon. No promises though.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello? Is anyone there? No? *sad violin melody in the background*  
**

**So I haven't updated this in a year... again, but on my defense I actually regained interest in this story and might actually want to continue this and update more often, I hope the inspiration lasts enough for that.**

**Chapter Updated: 04-10-12**

**Chapter Edited: 04-11-12  
**

**Aftershock.  
**

_It's time to party._

I flew to the scene in, to be honest unnecessary, sonic speed making my grand entrance shooting every Fuse Cloner that got in my way. Unfortunately for me, by when I was finally warming up to really kick Fuse Cloner gooey behind, the battle was on it's final stage. Butch had kept me in his grip for too long, so when I got there to finally help, Jack and Coop were finishing off the last remains of the cloners.

_So much for my party._

"Thank you for your help, Buttercup," Jack said smiling at me.

"Although, ten minutes earlier would've been _fantastic_," Coop said cleaning sweat off his forehead. "Considering Butch was supposed to be here all along-"

"I ordered him to stay away, Coop," Jack said cutting Coop off and looking out into the forest in deep thought, "So far we haven't seen a Rowdyruff Fuse Clone, and to be honest I don't want the first one to be an exact copy of Butch."

Me either. One Butch was more than enough for me, I didn't need another one, specially a Fuse Clone, pushing my buttons to insanity. And then, as if on cue, which probably was, Butch landed in front of us with a rather sly smile on his face.

"Sorry for missing the action," he said to Coop flashing him a wide smile, "I was busy..."-his eyes lingered on me for a quick second,- "... following Jack's orders. Did I do well, _Sensei_?"

Butch sounded almost mocking, but Jack smiled politely at him, "you did very well."

There was a slight rather awkward silence between the four of us. Butch still had _that_ smirk on his face, the one he got when he was amusing himself with someone's thoughts, and by judging the look on Coop's face, it was his thoughts Butch was reading. Coop didn't really liked Butch, mostly because he had heard how he used to be one of the bad guys, my enemy, which for some reason made him his enemy. I guess in a way he didn't trust Butch, like most of us didn't either, but he had to deal with him and be nice to him, like most of us did. To be honest, I think Jack is the only one who honestly believes they're not evil but rather _confused_ due to the lack of proper parenting.

"Why did you want me here, Jack?" I asked remembering I came here because Jack had to tell me something that couldn't wait for tomorrow.

"Oh yes, I have something very important to tell you," he said, "perhaps we should discuss this inside the house over a cup of tea."

I would've forgotten if it hadn't been for stupid Butch distracting me. A wide smirk spread across his face but I chose to ignore it as I walked inside the makeshift home with Jack and Coop.

"And perhaps, Butch should stay outside and make guard," Coop called walking away obviously annoyed that Butch didn't come to help them.

I heard Butch chuckle as he took his position to protect Goat's Junk Yard, like he should've when the attack began, as Jack closed the door behind us. The house was actually pretty small, probably as big as the meeting room, and it didn't seem comfortable at all. There were bunk beds in one corner, the kitchen was in the other corner, and there was actually an old TV, but it seemed as if no one had used it in a while. I arched an eyebrow when Jack and Coop sat Indian style on a couple cushions in the middle of the room, I guess a table would take away whatever little space they had for themselves. I sat on one of the cushions and Jack gave me a cup I didn't notice he had in the first place. I took it and set it aside as I waited for Jack to tell me that _thing_ that simply couldn't wait for tomorrow. He seemed hesitant as I scanned his face for any clue as for what he needed to tell me and, judging by the way he was looking at me, something told me he was gonna ask me the same favor Abigail had.

"I'm going to start by saying that I'm still disappointed by your behavior today," he started and I couldn't help but roll my eyes at him. He didn't seem to appreciate that. "But that isn't what I asked you to come here for"- _no duh!- _"I asked you to come here because I wanted to inform you a large number of humans have signed on to help fight Fuse. Mitch was among the first to volunteer."

I felt my heart jump at the thought of seeing him again, but I shrugged it off as if it meant nothing to me, "So?"

"So, we still needs someone to train the humans on Sunday," he began, "and I was wondering if you could ask-"

"Abigail already asked," I cut him off, not wanting another person to ask the favor and feel the double the pressure. "I'm not sure I can convince him though, maybe if we looked for someone else..." I trailed off hopeful.

"We already tried looking for someone else," Jack said with slight disappointment in his words, "Considering the schedules and who is really suitable to train the humans, Butch really is our best option."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes again, but didn't fight my need to frown deeply at having no choice other than Butch to train the humans.

"It can't be _that _hard to convince the guy," Coop said speaking for the first time, a smirk taking over his lips, "if you use your lady parts wisely, I'm sure he won't say no."

I heard the ghostly echo of Butch's laughter as a slight pink probably, very most likely, took over my cheeks.

"That was highly inappropriate, Coop,"Jack said shaking his head in disapproval.

"This is what you had to tell me that couldn't wait for tomorrow?" I asked ignoring Coop's comment and the image of Butch smirking because of it.

"No it wasn't," Jack said in a grave and rather low voice, "If I'm asking _you_ to convince him it's because you're the only one strong enough to keep him under control. I want you to keep an eye on him and never let him out of your sight."

_And here I was planning to avoid Butch for the rest of my life._

"Why?"

"Because he's one of the bad guys," Coop blurted out, "like Mojo and Mandark, he can't be trusted!"

"Because he hasn't been fulfilling his watch duties and disappears into the night without a trace," Jack said ignoring Coop's comment. He really was the only one that believed the Rowdyruff Boys weren't _that_ evil, "just yesterday he was patrolling the area and didn't come back to his position until late in the morning."

"Maybe he got stuck in another area?" I said fighting the need to blush knowing I was the reason why he hadn't gone back to his position.

"His duty is _this_ area, and he knows that," Jack said looking out the window, as if to ensure Butch was still where he was supposed to be. "I'm afraid he might be planning to betray us to Fuse, after all, Fuse got more to offer him and his brothers than we do."

"And we all know if they do decide to betray us we're dead meat," Coop said making his hand into a fist in unspoken anger, "they're the reason why Fuse hasn't won yet and as much as I hate to say it we need them on our side.

No, Butch wouldn't betray us, not with Fuse at least. He's not stupid, or at least Brick isn't, and we all know that victory for Fuse means no more planet Earth for _anyone_ to conquer or take over. But for Jack to be so uneasy about Butch there had to be a deeper reason than to what he was giving me, and the fact that he didn't even want to tell _me_ made me worry that much more. Right now, I wish I could read minds.

"Can I count on you to keep an eye on him?" Jack asked more like an ordering parent rather than a requesting friend.

I twisted my mouth and puckered my brow in disagreement, "Fine, but I get a day off without having to watch over him."

"Agreed," Jack smiled and started drinking the tea I didn't realize he had been holding all along.

I smiled at my old Sensei and grabbed the cup I had set aside and drank it's contents. The night went on and I kept talking to my two good friends forgetting about the time. Coop was a nicer guy than everyone expected him to be and, after being sincerely brokenhearted when Megas was shut down, he kind of took it upon himself to protect Bubbles and Kuki. They were the only ones to understand his pain and cried with him his loss, he really took that to the heart and had been like an older brother to them. Which someway somehow made him my older brother too, and he also took that to the heart. Of course he treated _me_ more like one of the guys, so most of his jokes where on me. Jack, on the other hand, always treated me with respect, it took a while but he saw me as his equal in martial arts. That's a big thing to happen with a Sensei, so when I saw the trace of respect in his eyes I had a victory dance inside my body. These two where the closest thing I had to a family after my sisters and the Professor.

Time passed by, and when it was finally time for me to leave, Coop offered to accompany me but to my bad luck my Jack decided my babysitter duties began now and assigned Butch as my chaperone. I didn't bother to hide my frown, making Coop smirk, and after saying my goodbyes, I set to the air trying to get home as fast as possible.

"My company is not that bad," Butch smirked as we were flying towards Tech Square.

"It's just as great as getting attacked by spawns," I said frowning.

"Was that a hint?" he arched an eyebrow playfully and I blushed when I finally got the joke.

"No, it wasn't," I said flying ahead to not look at him.

It annoyed me to blush so much in front, and because of, him. It made me feel weak and stupid and... _girlie_. I'm tough, blunt, sarcastic and everything but _girlie_, I'm Buttercup Utonium for crying out loud! I don't blush over stupidities like _him, _but he was just so-

"Handsome? Charismatic?" he said catching up to me from under so we were looking straight at each other, his hand behind his head with an amused smile on his face.

"_Annoying!"_ I barked rolling my eyes and sped up again, but he quickly caught up to me again. "Of course you would be reading my mind."

"It's not like I can help it," he said frowning for the first time in a while, he was usually always smirking. "Sometimes I wish I could turn it off so I could get a decent night sleep."

"And sometimes you just exploit it,"

"And you wouldn't?" He asked arching an eyebrow, and looked at me expectantly.

I guess if I _had_ that power I wouldn't exactly be a _good Samaritan_ with it. I could use it against Dexter and show how little of a genius he truly was, but Brick made sure to prove this to all of us with every single chance he got. I would definitely use it against Blossom.I would lurk the darkest corners of her mind and throw in her face that she wasn't as perfect as the liked to brag.

Butch let out a laugh, "See? You would be no better than me if you had this power."

I rolled my eyes and landed on the branch of a tree that was near the main entrance of Tech Square, Jack had sent a message that I was on my way back so I could expect Blossom waiting for me, ready to yell at me again. To be honest, I didn't want to go back yet, I was an outdoors person and I hated being cooped up inside Tech Square. I could only get out if I was to start my shift or if I had to run an errand for someone, it was never about having fun anymore. That was another factor that was killing me. Now I knew what caged birds felt like, ready to spread their wings and see the world, but fate had decided otherwise. I hate Fuse with a passion.

"We could go somewhere else, you know?" Butch said laying on the tree trunk.

"Oh really?" I said not minding much. For as badly as I wanted to go _anywhere _else, we both had to be somewhere and there was someone waiting for us ready to kill us if we didn't get there on time.

"Blossom went to bed already,"

"But she's keeping tracks on me," I said watching the entrance absentmindedly, the lights were on, regardless of being it past curfew, and I could see shadows of people walking back and forth. It was probably the Professor-

"It's Abigail, actually," he said, I looked at him to see his famous smirk forming on his lips, yet again. "She wants to know if you managed to convince me to train the humans,"

"I'll tell her I did my best but you were too much of a stubborn git and it couldn't be helped," I said in a calm voice smirking back at him. "She will understand."

"Will she?" he asked stepping closer to me, his voice turning low, "what if I tell her you didn't do your best?"

I half-laughed, "It's your word against mine, Butchie, she will believe me."

"She thinks you didn't even talk to me today," he continued, stepping closer to me to a point where we hardly had any space left between us. "She actually thinks you're scared of me, for _some_ reason." I felt his warm breath against my ear making shivers run down my spine.

I laughed out loud, "She doesn't know me at all then," I said smirking, "I'm not scared of _anything_ or _anyone_."

"Why did you leave this morning then?" He purred against my ear making my entire body shiver.

"Why can't you let it go?" I arched an eyebrow starting to feel annoyed by his insistence.

He stepped back to frown at me, "Because it annoyed me, and I'm still the only one with the right to be annoyed."

I rolled my eyes at him and crossed my arms over my chest. The light's were still on and Abigail's shadow, if Butch was lying to me, was still pacing back and forth behind the glass doors. If I didn't get Butch's answer, whether it was yes or no, I would never hear the end of it with Abigail, specially since she thought I was _scared_ of Butch_. _Idiot.

I sighed and swallowed my pride once again, "Would you _please_ help us train the humans?"

He flashed perfect white teeth in a wide malicious smirk, "You still haven't convinced me yet,"

I rolled my eyes, got on my tiptoes and pressed my lips softly against his.

"You're going to have to do _way_ better than that," he said against my lips.

I rolled my eyes and wrapping my arms around his neck I outlined his lips with the tip of my tongue, taunting his to a battle but he wouldn't bulge. I'm not gonna lie, even though this was an unusually rather 'tender,' to not call it boring, kiss I was happy he was playing hard to get. After all the fighting I had to do during the day, the last thing I wanted to do was end it in a fight, specially with Butch. If I were to get in a fight with him, about _anything_, it would take a day, and the energy of a night's worth of good sleep, to actually finish the first round. So to say I was exhausted was an understatement.

"Too bad, I was getting ready for round one," Butch said pulling away smirking for the hundredth time tonight, actually making me chuckle.

When his lips returned to mine, they were a little more forceful and demanding, moving against mine with authority. He placed a hand on my hip and the other one on my face and used his thumb to gently part my lips. I obliged and the kiss deepened when our tongues met and started fighting to stay in control of the kiss.

"And here I thought you didn't want to fight," he said as I caught his bottom lip between my teeth and bit down softly.

"I never turn down a challenge," I smirked making something flash in his eyes. The same _thing_ that flashed in his eyes that night.

He crushed his lips against mine definitely making a stand in our little battle. He caught me off guard when he pushed me against the tree trunk making me moan against his lips, which in result made him groan against mine. I ran my hand through his hair as he placed his hands on my hips pulling me closer to his body, if possible. He abandoned my lips to move to my neck and I, involuntarily, threw my head back to give him easier access to it. There was a certain spot that was longing for his attention, and when his tongue flicked so close to that area my back, involuntarily, arched against his body.

"I'll help you train the humans," he said hoarsely, but I was too busy trying to get his lips to that spot I wanted to actually register what he was saying. I heard him chuckle and pulled away making me, involuntarily, groan my disagreement, "Now you know how it feels."

And with that he set to the air leaving his signature green streak of light following behind. I stood there dumbstruck, feeling my heart race and my body shaking, and a strange need growing in my stomach running through my body stopping at that ignored spot in my neck. _Now you know how it feels_? What the heck was that supposed to mean?

_ Just so you now, _teasers_ happen to be more annoying than mind-readers..._

Did he just...? "Son of a-"

"Who's there?" I heard Abigail call as I stood looking like an idiot. "Buttercup? Is that you?"

I swear I could hear him laughing with a huge smirk on his face but tomorrow he wasn't going to get the end of it. Yup. Karma is a bitch.

**_To Be Continued..._**

**Have you ever had that weird feeling when you're about to finish a chapter and your fingers get all anxious, and what you know is the final scene of your chapter before uploading it is taking longer than it should? No? Well that's what I've been feeling for the last 20 minutes or so. Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter and that it was worth the wait. I hope to update this more often and get it out of the way. No promises though.**

**Edit: Added a little bit more stuff that hopefully helped this chapter... hopefully...  
**

**_Take Care Everyone!_  
**


	6. Chapter 6

**What? Another update? Yep. I got inspired to continue this story so I hope my updates are a bit more frequent now.  
**

**Chapter Updated: 6/19/12  
**

**Chapter Edited: 6/20/12  
**

**Aftershock  
**

I opened my eyes feeling surprisingly annoyed at the world. This time, Bubbles didn't have to slam the door open and shout at me with her chirping voice, no, this time had been different. This time Butch had the audacity to be a complete idiot and get a 'payback' for me being a tease.

Ugh.

Why was I so bothered about this? I don't want to get myself involved with Butch anymore than what I already have. He's a Rowdyruff- my enemy for that matter- and judging by what Mandark had attempted to hide he hasn't changed. Maybe those evil 'geniuses' are planning something that could potentially cause our loss to Fuse. Maybe Jack discovered something that caused him to doubt Butch when he was the only one who honestly believed in him and his brothers. Maybe I should tell Blossom about that envelope and Jack's doubts. They would never get Blossom out of their hairs and I'm sure Butch would appreciate a double shift to exhaust him even more.

_Yeah, that should teach him..._

"I would appreciate a double shag more," I jumped in shock seeing him sitting on my window with a huge smirk on his face.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I yelled in a whisper hoping no one would listen and jumping out of bed to kick him out of my room.

"You're really gonna kick me out?" he smirked fully getting into my room to meet me halfway faking to be hurt "Buttercup, where are your manners?"

"Answer the damn question!" I hissed. I was in enough trouble with Blossom to get in more trouble for having a guy- Butch- in my room.

He rolled his eyes, "Jack asked me to get you, he knows it's your day off and wants to discuss some things with you." His lips welcomed a smirk and continued, "And don't worry, it's so far off from her head; we could actually bang in the room next to hers and she would think it's _everyone_ but you _and_ I."

I studied his face for the trace of a lie but couldn't find any. I really couldn't believe he would just come to tell me this in person when he could've just sent me a message or something, so my conclusion was to get back at me even more for teasing him.

_Really mature._

"You're the one who thinks that I want to get you in trouble with Blossom for teasing me," he smirked again, "I already got my payback and it had the effect on you that I had hoped for. _Now_, you're the one who's trying to give me a double shift and exhaust me to death for teasing you back," his voice turned mocking, "_really mature_, Buttercup."

"Bite. Me." I said frowning at him.

His eyes shone with malice, "I would _love_ to."

I noticed his eyes traveling down my body and I realized I was on my pj's. They weren't provocative at all, they were actually some sweats and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off but I crossed my arms over my chest remembering I slept without a bra on. He made a strained sound and I blushed realizing he had been reading my thoughts. If he hadn't noticed about the bra, he surely knew now and I could tell by the hungry look on his face.

I opened my mouth to speak but he crushed his lips against mine fogging my thoughts and the thousand red flags that attempted to warn me this wasn't such a good idea. He was rough with his tongue thrusting it inside my mouth battling my tongue for the crown. My hands went straight to his hair digging my fingers on his scalp as his hands went to my hips pressing me harder against his body. I moaned against his lips and he abandoned them to press his lips and gently suck that spot on my neck he had deliberately neglected the night before. I felt a wave of pleasure running through my body reaching my toes making them curl.

"I think you should leave," I moaned against his hair as he continued kissing and nibbling at my neck.

"In a moment," he said stepping back and taking his shirt off to go back to kissing my lips.

I welcomed him returning the kiss with raw need I didn't know I had. He groaned against my lips and pushed me on the bed making me moan in return as he got on top of me covering my body with his. So much for not wanting to get involved with him anymore.

* * *

I felt him waking up in a jolt as he probably remembered he had fallen asleep on my bed after the deed was done. He was probably worried someone would come in and see us, but if that were the case I would be disposing of his body by now at Candy Cove or Goat's Junk Yard, depending on my mood.

"You're not worried someone would walk in and see us?" he seemed kind of shocked that I was so calm about it.

"It's my day off, remember?" I said stretching my arms getting the laziness out of my system, "No one is dumb enough to come and try to wake me up on the day I get to sleep in."

"What if someone decides to be dumb enough?" he arched an eyebrow at me keeping most of his attention at the door.

"They would end up in the hospital wing with third degree burns," I said making him flinch, "needless to say I was grounded for a year, good thing Eduardo knows how to take an apology and not hold grudges. I never thought imaginary friends would come in handy in this war."

"So, last night you could've stayed with me and you wouldn't have a valid excuse to leave?" he asked sounding like a child who realized he could've had a whole cake and not get in trouble.

I laughed, "I could've, but you were being a little prick."

"Not funny, Buttercup," he snuggled closer onto my neck, his lips tickling it. "I could've had you all night."

I felt my cheeks blushing furiously and I tried to change the subject, "no because you should've been supposed to be doing your shift, right?"

"That didn't stop you last time," he ran his tongue up from my neck to my jaw and then to my lips and smirked at me like he always did.

"Jack is starting to doubt you, and you not doing your shifts is gonna make things worse," I said trying to ignore the small circles his hand was doing on my belly under the covers, hazing my thoughts again as his lips pressed against my jaw.

"As long as I keep them safe, he shouldn't be complaining," Butch said kissing my lips, and I could swear I heard some annoyance in his voice.

"Buttercup? Are you still asleep?" Bubbles said on the other side of the door.

Butch and I froze in place in shock as we heard my blonde sister knock softly on the door. I wondered if she had heard Butch and I talking or if someone from the other rooms had heard anything and she was sent to investigate. I rolled my eyes trying to hide the deep blush that took over my cheeks as I realized that if she, or anyone, were to hear anything they would've heard plenty last night. Butch seemed to blush too and got into deep thought, but his face soon relaxed and I took that as a good thing.

There was more silence between us as I heard a ruffle of papers and saw a yellow envelope being slid under the door. As soon as we were sure Bubbles, or anyone else, couldn't hear us, Butch jumped out of the bed and started gathering his clothes.

"We shouldn't have done this," he said causing me to roll my eyes. No duh, Sherlock. "Not here anyway, it's too risky. We should go to one of the abandoned houses next time."

"Next time?" I asked with a sly smile on my face stretching my arms over my head, "What makes you think there will be a next time?"

"Please," he rolled his eyed and chuckled smirking. He kneeled on the bed and pressed his lips against mine and then caught my bottom lip between his teeth and bit down softly making me sigh. He smirked as if he had made a point. "Come out tonight, it's your day off, right?"

I rolled my eyes smiling amused and pointing at the envelope on the floor, "Apparently I'm needed for something,"

Butch groaned against my neck, "It's not that important,"

"I'm sure Bubbles wouldn't have risked her life if it wasn't important," I giggled when his lips pressed against a ticklish spot on my neck.

He sighed and pulled away shaking his head,"Your Mitch is coming today-"

"Mitch is coming?" I jumped out of bed and ran to pick up the envelope on the floor feeling a jolt of joy run through my body.

I heard Butch sigh, "Yes, he should be arriving in a couple of hours with the _rest_ of the humans. _Now_, will you come out tonight?"

I pulled out the papers from the envelope, with my heart racing and my hands shaking I scanned every paper for the mention of his name. I involuntarily bit my bottom lip as I read that he had been assigned under my supervision. My stomach twirled in anticipation of seeing him again, and when I turned around to gather my clothes from the floor I found that I was alone.

I couldn't help but feel an empty hole in my stomach but I quickly brushed it off when I remembered that I was to meet Jack, along with Mitch, in a couple of hours.

I quickly got dressed and got on my way to confirm the news with the Professor. Now, although I don't think Bubbles would be dumb enough to play this kind of joke on me, it had happened before that we would get news of the humans coming back that would be quickly revoked by the big bosses around. I couldn't let myself get too excited about this until I was certain there was no going back in their word.

When I finally reached the office I slammed the door open and my heart stopped. His bright amber eyes shone brightly as his full lips mouthed my name.

"Buttercup," his now rough voice, or at least rougher than I remembered, rang with humor, "you look like you just saw someone come back from the death."

I felt my pulse back and somehow found my voice, "No, I just saw the biggest cry baby in the universe. I'm surprised you haven't run away yet."

"Low blow, Buttercup," he stood up and walked towards me to hug me. I hugged him back as he whispered, "you know I wanted to stay with you."

I felt my knees shaking and my heart racing, and I felt like the moment would never end, until...

"Keep your hands to yourselves kids, _please_," the Professor said in a stern voice.

"Sorry Prof," Mitch said smirking like he used to back when we were in high school and he would walk me home.

"So, Mitchelson, what made you decide to join the army of heroes?" I asked sitting on the empty chair next to his right across the Professor.

"When I was told I wouldn't have to see that feminine crustacean anymore, I jumped on the opportunity without a second guess," I couldn't help but laugh out loud.

"This isn't going to be easy," the Professor cut out, "and this is certainly not a joke."

"Certainly," Mitch replied, still with a smirk on his face. "I didn't expect it to be,"

"Good, then you won't mind I put you under Butch's supervision-"

"I thought he was put under my supervision," I cut the Professor off.

"Change of plans," he said resting his elbows on his desk and laid his chin on top of his hands. "Jack might have already asked _you_ to keep an eye on Butch, but you're not going to be around him during his training days with the humans, so here is where Mitch comes in..."

He trailed off as we both stared at Mitch, who only quirked an eyebrow in confusion, "what?"

"You can't put him to spy on Butch," I said mad at the Professor for putting Mitch in such danger, "if Butch finds out-"

"He won't,"

"He will!"

"How can you be so sure?"

_He can read minds!_ "He's not an idiot,"

"I'm sorry, I'm a little lost here," Mitch spoke up for the first time, "you guys want me to spy on the guy who looks like Buttercup, just as scary but not nearly as hot,"

I felt my cheeks burning and something inside of me jumped, sadly though, he thought I was scary.

"I would appreciate if you didn't call my daughter 'hot'," the Professor said in that annoying fatherly tone, "and yes, that's the one,"

"I'm not afraid of him." Mitch said with a cocky smile on his face.

"Then that settles it," the Professor said with a grin, "Mitch will keep an eye on Butch while you can't Buttercup."

I shook my head in disapproval but agreed, considering I had no other option. Mitch was utterly stubborn and the Professor was pleased things had gone his way, so my opinion was simply unnecessary. I was absolutely sure nothing I could say would make them change their minds so I wasn't even gonna try to convince him otherwise. Besides, I was too happy with Mitch being here and I didn't want to ruin it with an argument.

After our meeting with the Professor was finished, I had to part ways with Mitch because I had to go meet Jack. Unless, or course, Butch telling me that Jack needed to talk to me could've been nothing but a hoax.

_One that got out of control_... I thought fighting the blush that crept on my cheeks as the feeling of satisfaction tingled in every inch of my body.

I rolled my eyes at myself and set out flying towards Goat's Junk Yard as I surveyed the area for some unwanted spawn activity. Those things liked to cause chaos by demolishing houses and replacing them with goo. Speaking of which, I was surprised Blossom hadn't killed me for running off last night when she asked me to wait for her, maybe she knew it would be a lost cause and didn't even try anymore. I bit my lip feeling somewhat guilty for what I had done. I didn't like making my sister mad or worried, but I certainly didn't like an escort and specially not a nanny taking care of me or chasing after me 24/7. I needed to find a middle ground with her before we drove each other insane. But first, I had to deal with Jack and convince him to leave Mitch out of babysitting duties.

Butch was very much like me, as much as I hated to admit it, he hated having a watch over him. I bet he wasn't happy when he found out, through reading our minds obviously, that Jack had assigned me as his nanny and he wasn't going to be any happier when he found out that Mitch, a normal human being, was going to be watching him as well. He probably knew by now, which was why I needed to get Jack to convince the Professor this was too risky and we shouldn't be pushing Butch's patience, or Brick's for that matter. They were struggling with trying to find something we could offer them that Fuse couldn't so they wouldn't betray us, but here we were, giving them the hardest shifts and putting them under the watch of nannies and babysitters. Seriously, for the smartest people in the world they're pretty stupid.

I landed in front of the little shack and opened to door to find it completely empty. I quirked an eyebrow confused as I scanned the little house for any trace of him.

"He's waiting for you at Sector V," I jumped when I heard Butch's voice behind me. "I kinda forgot to tell you that this morning."

"Why did he go to Sector V?" I asked confused, I would assume the junk yard was the perfect place to train since there was nothing of value there and it didn't matter if it got destroyed.

"Because he's gonna use Number 4's training room. At least for today," he chuckled and smirked, "when they're under my care they will be training here, getting down and dirty."

"Don't go too hard on them," I said rolling my eyes, "they're just humans, they're very fragile and breakable-"

"And like to play tough and become spies to seem cool in front of certain people even though it might get them killed," he said calmly, but the venom that enveloped his words made it clear he was pissed, "but hey, it makes the Professor happy, right?"

I froze in my spot, not at the fact that he knew, but at how he could get back at Mitch, for that, "why do you say that?"

"Because I know your little boyfriend is gonna be my nanny whilst you're not," he said shrugging calmly, not a single trace of anger left in his voice.

"You don't seem to be that upset," or I really didn't know how to read that sardonic smile of his.

He chuckled, "As long as I'm getting laid you can have the whole world watching me." I snorted making him frown. "What? You're gonna be a little prude now that your boyfriend is here?"

I blushed at how often Butch referred to Mitch as my boyfriend-

"Not the _point_, Buttercup," he interrupted my thoughts looking pretty annoyed.

"Why are you so upset?" I asked starting to feel annoyed myself. It's not like Mitch is gonna skip on training just to watch him.

He looked away, like an upset child, "I don't want him to get in the way,"

I rolled my eyes, "Get in the way of what?"

"Get in the way of us," he said looking at me straight in the eyes making a warm jolt run through my body. He then smirked showing perfect white teeth in a perfect cruel smile, "wait, allow me to rephrase that, I don't want him to get in the way of me getting laid."

I felt whatever jolt that had run through my body crash and break leaving me feeling kind of empty. Of course there wasn't an _us_ between Butch and I outside of the bed, but he had a way of saying things that could easily turn the obvious into a painful stab. He made it very clear I meant nothing more than a shag, and made sure to remind me every time he could that all I was to him was a toy he played with whenever he wanted.

_I'm not _anyone's_ toy..._

"You know what Butch, you don't have to worry about anyone getting in the way of you getting laid because we're done," I said feeling hot rage running through my body, "there are plenty of other girls that would _love_ to sleep with you and I don't need to be a mind reader to see that."

"Yeah, Abigail is among them, maybe I should give her a try," he said smiling sardonically. "Besides, you can only go back to the same dish for seconds until you get bored of the same stuff."

My hands turned into fists as my brow puckered into a deep glare, "do whatever, or _whoever_, you want, just leave me alone."

"Don't worry, you won't have to ask me again," he said smirking and I only shook my head fighting tears of rage back as I got the air and flew towards Sector V.

I didn't understand why Butch had to be so crude sometimes. He couldn't even let me enjoy the fact that Mitch was back. I didn't expect him to be very welcoming but he didn't had to come and label him as an "obstacle" of him getting laid. It didn't matter because now that Mitch was here things were gonna change, specially with Butch.

**_To Be Continued...  
_**

**I hope you liked this update, it wasn't as soon as I had hoped but at least it didn't take a year right? This was also shorter but I just wanted to update something. Please, forgive me if something doesn't make sense at the moment, I'm typing this at 4 am, I will come back and fix it, but yeah, I really wanted to update something. Anyway, I really do hope you like it and thank you for continuing to read my story :D  
**

**Coming Next Chapter:  
**

_"I'll be nice to him _if_ you're nice to me."  
_

_"Are you blackmailing me?"  
_

_"Yes. Yes I am."_

_"You can't do that! It's not honest!"  
_

_"I'm a _villain_, Buttercup, honesty is an alien word in my vocabulary."  
_

**_Take Care Everyone!_  
**


	7. Chapter 7

**So here's another update! :D and just a couple days later! Yes! I'm so proud of myself! I owed you guys for reading this after taking over A YEAR to update two chapters. Anyway, I'm actually planning to finishing this story before I take on anything else. Hopefully I stick to the plan =/ Well thank you so much for the amazing reviews! They inspired me to continue and I hope I'm actually delivering a chapter worth of your time :D  
**

**Enjoy!  
**

**Chapter Updated: 6-22-12  
**

**Aftershock  
**

I smirked as the humans lined up in front of me at Goat's Junk Yard. I quickly recognized Mitch in the bunch as I watched him through the corner of my eyes and shook my head in amusement. _He_ was supposed to be the one watching me and keeping me under check if I misbehaved? Really? Unless I got the wrong person out of Buttercup's thoughts then the people who thought he could do the job were far stupider than I had imagined. And I'm supposed to be surrounded by geniuses?

_Buttercup._

I glared at the ground, feeling more than ready to punch the guy in the throat. Buttercup and I had gotten into a huge argument because of him and now she was avoiding me. Not that I couldn't find her or anything, but she was more than ready to kill me, and even though of course she wouldn't actually murder me, I really didn't want to wake up with sore muscles and painful bruises the next morning. At least not those types of sore muscles and painful bruises.

I hadn't had sex since we last did it in her room and it wasn't because I hadn't tried. It was because these girls, or at least the girls I had the bad luck to come across, couldn't possibly compare to my level of need. They were too soft and sweet and I needed tough and rough. I needed sore muscles and painful bruises, not caresses and hickeys. I needed Buttercup, not any other girl. I had even had the decency to keep her friend Abigail out of the menu and not sleep with her so she wouldn't hate me as much, but I guess I really crossed the line with what I had said.

She hated me.

She would avoid thinking about me, but when she slipped hatred would envelope each and every single one of her thoughts. Of course, that only happened once a day because the remaining time of the day, she could only think of _him_. I looked up at Mitch who was talking to other humans making me frown. Who the hell was _he_ to take away my fun?

_"So he's the guy I have to watch? He doesn't seem that tough."_ I heard his thoughts creep into mine as he casually smiled at me.

I chuckled and smirked at him. Oh kiddo, you have_ no idea_.

* * *

I heard her coming. Her thoughts were louder than usual, fueled by anger. She was cussing me off, to say the least, and every inch of rage that was running through her veins was being transported to me through her thoughts. This wasn't the only way I knew she was coming, though. I heard her slam the door open, causing Mojo to get annoyed and yell at her, which she obviously ignored, I heard her stomping her feet as we walked upstairs and I could definitely hear her grunts and growls as she reached my door.

"What the _hell_ is your problem?" she slammed the door open barking angrily at me.

"It's not my fault he couldn't handle the training." I smirked casually closing the book I was reading while laying on my bed, knowing she knew I'd done it on purpose.

"You could've broken his arm!" she yelled exasperated and I could only watch her amused. Did she really think I cared? "Stop. Smiling. Like. That."

"What do you want me to do? Give him special treatment because he's giving you a different type of special treatment?" I asked quirking an eyebrow to then regret my words right away.

She blushed, not in anger but in embarrassment, thinking about actually receiving special treatment from _Mitch_. Good thing she quickly returned to the matter at hand. "I don't want you to give him a special treatment, I just don't want you to _kill_ him."

"I wasn't planning on killing him," I said shrugging carelessly, making her fume. "Besides, I assumed he would be able to handle it since he's supposed to be the one watching over me. Seriously, I was expecting better from you, BC."

_"Oh. Hell. No." _I smirked as realization hit her. "You don't need to drag him into whatever it is that you have against me."

I'm not gonna lie, I _was_ taking out on Mitch the toll of the lack of sex and sleep in my life, after all, if it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have gone five days without at least snogging Buttercup. Sleeping with Buttercup exhausted me to a point of passing out and the whole world's thoughts were shut out of my mind, meaning I was actually able to have a decent night's sleep. That was the only reason why I sought her and nothing else. She was the only one who could do that to me, she was the only one who matched my level of need and actually _fueled_ it, she was the only one for me. Like I said, I tried to do it with another girl but like she had said, humans are _fragile_ and _breakable_ and I wasn't in the mood, nor would I be focused enough, to be gentle with someone I could break.

"What could I possibly have against you, Buttercup?" that came out with more venom than I had wanted. I had hoped for something more casual, but I was too frustrated to keep my temper under control.

"Oh I don't know, maybe the fact that my sister decided to give you the hardest shift and put me as your babysitter," she barked glaring, causing me to hold back a laugh.

"If that were the case, I would try to get even with your sister and not you," I said pursing my lips trying not to laugh, her thoughts were confused and frustrated and she wasn't thinking straight, which made her thoughts that much more amusing.

"Then why are you getting back at him?" _he can't possibly be that petty to be mad because he's not getting laid._

"That's _exactly_ why," I smirked with a full grin on my face. I winced at the sting that ran through her thoughts, but hid it behind a bigger smirk to let her know I was reading her mind.

"_Of course, I'm nothing more than a shag to him..."_ Her anger was fueled again,"Well, get that out of your system!" she yelled angrily. "I'm not gonna lower myself to that anymore and besides, I thought you got tired of getting seconds for the same dish-"

"Yeah, I knew that was gonna bite me in the ass," I cut her off sighing annoyed at my own stupidity. That comment had cost me her rejection for five days, and four painfully long nights. "Maybe it should come and bite him in the ass too."

"Leave him out of this," Buttercup threatened, eyes narrowing and nostrils flaring in the deepest glare that had ever adorned her face.

Her cheeks flushed in anger and my mind was invaded of memories when I made her blush for other reasons, I wondered if I could make that blush travel all the way down her neck to her chest. Her lovely chest that I had marked with my teeth so many times before, her soft and perky breasts that fit so perfectly into my hands that made me wonder if she had been made just for me. Her lips twitched, making my eyes fly straight to them, so full and soft like a ripe deliciously juicy fruit that made you want to bite them hard. My eyes went to hers, they shone with a fire that could might as well burn me alive with lust or disintegrate me with anger.

Is it weird that I'm getting turned on?

"Fine," I said standing up and walking up to her, "I'll be nice to him _if_ you're nice to me."

She gaped at my proposal, "Are you blackmailing me?"

"Yes. Yes I am." I said smiling casually. I'm not gonna lie, I had missed her, missed sleeping like a baby, and I was gonna have her again by any means possible. Even if it meant blackmailing.

"You can't do that!" she frowned angrily at me.

"Why not?" I quirked an eyebrow smirking at her.

"Because... because..." she seemed to struggle to have a good reason making me smile in amusement, "Because it's not honest!"

"I'm a _villain_, Buttercup, honesty is an alien word in my vocabulary." I said in a laugh making her frown. "Besides, you know you've missed me too."

_"I had, very much so but..."_ that was enough permission for me to claim what was mine so I inched closer to her to kiss her- "I can't," she turned her head away making my lips miss hers.

"You can't or you won't?" I asked feeling annoyed by her rejection studying her thoughts for an answer. She always gave it away in her blurbs.

"Both." she replied sternly boring her eyes into mine defiantly. _"I won't risk my relationship with Mitch," _I gritted my teeth, _"it's bad enough that I lost my virginity to __Butch, I can't let him get in the way of finally being with Mitch __after all these years."_

My hands became fists as I fought the anger traveling through my body that threaten to make me do something stupid. "Then you're only wasting my time," I bit out far angrier than I had hoped for but I couldn't help it.

"Butch," she said my name with such _tenderness_ that almost made me forget I was mad, _almost_. "Don't hurt him, we can settle whatever you have against me but leave him out of this. _Please_."

And I lost it. Every inch of my body was being assaulted with rage. Rage to see Buttercup Utonium, the toughest fighter and my equal in power, lower herself to such pathetic position. She was actually _begging_ me to not hurt that pathetic excuse of a man and a fighter. How could someone like her lower herself and lose respect for someone like that? It was disgusting.

I lost myself in the anger and grabbed her face to keep her from running away as I crushed my lips against her. She had thought about kissing him before, I knew because her thoughts crept into mine when I couldn't sleep and wanted to know how she was doing, but I was gonna prove to her there was no comparison between the two. I parted her lips with my thumb and entered her mouth with my tongue ready to encounter hers an battle for power. I got nothing. She was passive and unresponsive, unlike her usual self, and all she could think of was of ways to not let Mitch find out about this. I bit her lip, making her whimper, hoping I had left a bruise, my mark, and get her in such trouble with Mitch that he would never want to see her again. I still got nothing. Not an angry response, not a painful punch, not a hurtful bite... Nothing!

I couldn't take it anymore so I pulled away and hissed, "Get out."

She obliged, flying out of my room through the window, happy to go to the one she actually wanted to kiss.

I wanted to punch _something_. No, I wanted to punch _someone_. No, I wanted to punch _him_! What the hell did he do to Buttercup? She never said please, she never turned down a fight, she never _whimpered._ At least not without making you regret it a second later biting you back harder to make _you_ whimper. I _hated_ the guy.

I got out of my room trying to focus on anyone's thought that weren't hers as I made my way to the underground bar. Yes, we had an underground bar and it hadn't even been my brothers' or my idea. Apparently, still in this war, the young needed a place to socialize, but knowing Blossom, Dexter and the Professor as well as we all did, we knew they would never approve. So, instead, they created an underground "bar-like" place under the Peach Creek Commons headquarters, obviously run by Ed, Edd and Eddy.

They had managed to bootleg booze from the other dimension every time the humans would come and do their monthly visits they would get re-stocked. But even the humans were running out of their alcoholic drinks, so to buy any from Eddy was quite expensive and not many got such luxury. To my wonderful luck, though, my brother Boomer had been assigned to protect that area, so after saving their sorry asses for several occasions, the dumbest trio in the planet did something smart and gave us, Brick included, free drinks for life.

And what I needed right now was to drown my anger with alcohol.

"Don't even think about it," I heard Brick's ring in the silence of my room and looked up to find him leaning against my door frame, arms crossed and a deep frown. Sometimes I think he can read minds too.

"You don't even know what I'm thinking about," I said putting my shoes on.

"You're right, I don't know what you're thinking and I don't know what's going on with that green puff either," I looked up at him, narrowing my eyes, "but I don't need to be a mind reader to know you're up to no good."

"In case you have forgotten, _brother_, I'm always up to no good," I smirked and it was his turn to narrow his eyes studying my face.

"You know our plan," he said carefully, "and you know we need to be in our best behavior for it to work. You being angry and drunk is not gonna help that at all."

I couldn't help but snort, "I can handle my alcohol-"

"Don't push it Butch," he said in a serious tone, "or I will personally drown you in an acid goo lake if I have to."

I rolled my eyes, "yeah, yeah, I get it,"

He narrowed his eyes again, but walked away without saying another word, at least not out loud. _"I mean it,"_ he said in his thoughts as I heard his door close behind him.

I rolled my eyes again and opened my window to fly to anywhere that didn't have a bed, or a memory of Buttercup, or a bed memory of Buttercup in it. I grunted at the last, just thinking about what we had done in her bed just four days ago made my blood boil in lust as if it had happened the night before. I was going insane, and it was _his_ fault that I was on that crashing course. He made her soft, weak, and pathetic. He had turned her into the anti-Buttercup, and if she continued at that rate all her sex-appeal would be gone and any other human would sound so much better than dealing with whatever was left of Buttercup.

I landed in front of the headquarters to be greeted by Eddy, "What's the password?"

I narrowed my eyes and gritted through my teeth, "Eddy is king,"

Eddy smirked and opened a secret door on the side of the main entrance, "It's good to have you here, Butch, haven't seen you in a while,"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

I walked down the narrow stairway to the basement where the sound of smooth music could be heard not so far away from the main entrance. I rolled my eyes at how careless these idiots could be, they could easily get caught if any of the puffs were nearby and _hear_ the music, that is _if_ they decided to investigate. I quickly spot my brother Boomer sitting at the bar talking to the bartender, Kevin, who was telling him of his first encounter with a Fuse spawn. He told my brother how he bravely fought the spawn with a broken hand and not a single weapon. Of course, this was all a lie since I could see how it really happened as it played out in his thoughts. He got bit and paralyzed, the spawn left him for dead but one of the Ed's, he doesn't remember who, saved his life. Yep, that sounds more believable.

I sat next to him, letting my body drop on the bar stool causing Kevin to quirk an eyebrow at me, "What's your problem?"

"I need booze, pronto," I said making him smirk as he walked to the back room to get what I had asked for.

_"What's really your problem?"_ I heard Boomer think as he took another sip at his drink.

And then, as if on cue, Mitch and his friends walked into the bar and I couldn't help but smirk at his left arm heavily bandaged arm. I noticed Boomer watching him through the corned of his eyes and shaking his head, he knew that was Buttercup's friend and he feared of what she would do to me if she found out _I_ did that to him. Too bad he didn't know she had already confronted me and did _nothing_ about it.

I felt my anger return but thankfully, Kevin returned with my beer right on time to numb my brain down.

"I heard you're gonna be training the humans," he said quirking an eyebrow, "I didn't see you as the babysitting type,"

"I heard you didn't sign up," I had actually thought he would since his girlfriend Nazz had, "I didn't see you as the crybaby type. What is it? Are you scared I'm going to _break your arm_?"

I felt Mitch's thoughts come to a halt as he flinched in the booth he had chosen, Boomer smiled but scolded me in his thoughts, while Kevin only smirked, "I wish I could but I injured my leg and I would be more useless than any help."

Now _that_ was true, at least the part of being him more useless than any help since he was lying about his injured leg.

"We're overcrowded with humans anyway," Boomer said remembering he had helped Bubbles with the paperwork of all the humans that had decided to come. "There's no space left to add Kevin, even if he wasn't injured and wanted to join."

"By the end of the training over half of them will be going back home," I said hoping, and knowing, Mitch had heard.

_"If he thinks I'm going home just because I injured my arm he's wrong. I'm gonna prove to him I can be better than him."_ he snorted in his thoughts making me snort out loud.

"What are you laughing at?" Kevin asked smiling amused at my sudden change of humor. _"It's like he's on his period lately, crazy ass mood swings,"_ he joked in his mind, too afraid for his life to say it out loud.

"I already broke a couple people on the first day," I said, and it wasn't a lie, I didn't just hurt Mitch, I hurt a couple others so he wouldn't realize it was personal. "Can't imagine what the rest of the training season is gonna be like. You humans are so... _weak_."

Kevin flinched, but attempted, and failed, to hide it behind an amused smile, "If I wasn't injured I would join in no time,"

"Maybe your injury is all cured by now and you can start training next Sunday?" I said focusing on Mitch's reaction, "I'm sure a lot of people dropped out after training with me so you should be fine about space."

"I'm gonna pass until I'm completely sure I'm good. I don't wanna have to get out when I'm finally getting into the training," he smiled nervously and went ahead to help another person that had sat on the bar at the far end.

I noticed Boomer's body tense when he noticed it was Ben Tennyson, the alien mutant boy. Boomer had been surprisingly quiet, but as soon as Ben arrived, his thoughts gave away his seriousness. Ben had developed a certain interest for Bubbles, an interest Boomer didn't appreciate, but that Bubbles did. She laughed and joked with Ben, and had even agreed to hang out with him some time tonight. I smiled amused, my little brother was jealous.

_"What does he have that I don't?"_

"An arsenal of mutant aliens?" I whispered as I brought my drink to my mouth.

_"Get out of my head Butch!"_ he yelled in his thoughts, _"it's not funny!"_

And with that his thoughts were gone, Boomer's new ability was to create impenetrable shields that even blocked my mind reading powers. I had asked him to put up a shield in my head to keep the world's thoughts out and it worked for a moment, that is until he slipped and the thoughts of every single human and Fuse monster attacked my brain almost driving me insane. The reason why I hadn't gone crazy was because I was able to shut the world out if I focused on specific thoughts. After being bored with my brothers' monotone thoughts I made the mistake of focusing on Buttercup's thoughts because that's how she found out I could read minds. I replied to something she had thought, something that had made me laugh out loud and question her intelligence, and she quickly reassured me of her intelligence when she figured it out right then and there.

I gave another sip to my drink sighing disappointed, annoying Boomer with his own thoughts could be very amusing, but with his thoughts protected I was left without any entertainment. So now I could only amuse myself with _his_ thoughts.

_"...Whatever, I can handle this, the Professor wouldn't give me this mission if he didn't think I could do it,"_ he thought annoyed, _"I can't wait for Buttercup to get out of her shift so the real fun can start."_

I choked on my drink and started coughing blocking Mitch's thought out of my head but it was useless. His thoughts of her, and what he wanted to do with her, invaded mine only fueling my anger and frustration. He smirked, and laughed in his head thinking that I couldn't even handle a drink. I hissed as my hands became fists at his "insults" and I got up ready to kill someone. Ready to kill _him._

"Dude! I just cleaned that!" Kevin whined grabbing the towel he had on his shoulder.

"Let's go Butch," Boomer said putting a hand on my shoulder. "You have to get ready for your shift, and I don't think Jack is gonna like you  
smelling of alcohol."

I growled and glared at Mitch, making the little bitch flinch, and walked out with Boomer following close behind. I wasn't gonna lie, I was pretty grateful he had pulled me out of the bar before I did something stupid and punched Mitch for thinking about playing with my toy. I wasn't good at sharing, I never liked it and therefore never shared my things, and I wasn't going to start now, specially not when I had to share _her_.

"Hi Boomer!" Bubbles called out from the sky as she landed in front of us. Buttercup was right, Bubbles's voice could be really annoying.

"Hello," Boomer said curtly knowing she was there to meet Ben.

"Aren't you lucky," I said out loud and pushed Boomer towards Bubbles, _"Butch, what are you doing?"_ I could feel the shock in his thoughts, "do me a favor blondie, and make sure my brother gets home safe, yeah? He hasn't been feeling well and I have to start my shift."

"S-sure, I just... have to cancel my plans with someone," Bubbles said, feeling some guilt of bailing out on Ben.

"You don't have to do that," Boomer insisted halfheartedly, glad to have crashed her date with Ben, as his girly self blushing realizing the closeness of their bodies. Seriously, how is he my brother?

"As much as Bubbles and I would love to leave you to die," I smirked making Bubbles gasp, "I don't think Brick would appreciate it if he found out I left you or your own, _but_ I have to be responsible and go do my shift, so thanks blondie, I just washed my hands with you."

"Butch, that's enough!" Boomer scolded when he noticed Bubbles's bottom lip quiver.

"It's fine Boomer, I would love to accompany you," Bubbles said in the sweetest most tender way that made my brother's thoughts stop dead. Barf.

"Thanks blondie," I said and set air to fly across the sky to Goat's Junk Yard and start my shift.

I flew at painfully slow speed so my green streak wouldn't give away my location to nearby Fuse Monsters and to not give away who I was to Fuse. When I flew Buttercup back home after her talk with Jack, I had been careless and allowed my green streak to show as I flew. A fuse cloner got the information and sent it directly to Fuse, which confused him since, as far as his knowledge went, there was only _one_ hero with a green streak. So, his deduction was that I was the result of a cloning experiment. This worked for Brick, since it wasn't giving away who we were, but he made it clear if we kept being this careless Fuse would figure out that we were entirely different beings, sooner or later.

Until then, I was loving the confusion and _fear_ we caused on Fuse since the day my brothers and I arrived, and tonight that confusion and fear was just as present as that first day.

_"I have to get to the bottom of this..."_ I heard Fuse think hidden in his lair far away, _"I can't afford these insignificant creatures increasing their defenses. I have to attack and _destroy _them, before they destroy me."_

**_To Be Continued...  
_**

**I was actually done with this chapter 10 minutes before midnight but I wanted to wait to give myself another day before the update. I know... it doesn't make any sense... anyway... So here it is, Butch's point of view. I hope you guys liked it and it didn't sound too out of character, I'm not that good at writing male point of view and the fact that I had to add other characters' thoughts made it that much harder. Why do I do this to myself? Anyhow, tell me what you think in the reviews :D I would love you guys forever!  
**

**Coming Next Chapter:**

_"So... I've been back for a while... and I was wondering... if you wanted to... celebrate?"_

_"Celebrate... how exactly?"_

_"Well... you know... spending the night... together?"_

_"Oh. Crap!"_

**_Take Care Everyone!_**


	8. Chapter 8

**Yay! Another update! So happy! :D So I changed my penname for no important reason but it's somewhat similar to the other one. Also, I'm not very happy with this chapter, I feel it kind of **_**rushed**_** but then again that's how all my chapters are ^^U. I hope you guys like this and thank you so much for the kind reviews.**

**Enjoy!**

**Chapter Updated: 07-04-12**

**Chapter Edited: 07-06-12**

**Aftershock**

"That is all for today, well done everyone!" Jack yelled at the group of humans that were still continuing the training.

I was feeling kind of bummed by the sharp decrease of volunteers because of Butch's training. After the humans had trained with... _him_... on Sunday, over half the people quit the training saying it was too much for them to handle. Many of them hadn't even been injured, but they didn't want to take their chances, after all, the people who did get injured didn't simply get a tiny scratch.

I glanced over at Mitch who was waving goodbye to a couple of friends and smiled at his now healed arm. Involuntarily, my hand went to my lips and touched them softly on the area that Butch had bit down and bruised. Unfortunately, since Fuse came to the planet my sisters and my ability to heal as fast as we used to, so I was left with my bruises and I had to make up excuses as of how I got them. Thankfully, I had a history of getting bruised and Mitch no longer questioned my stories and only laughed when the occasion called for it.

"That was a nice workout," Mitch said stretching his arms behind his head.

"Are you sure you want to go on with this?" I asked not bothering to hide my worry, because I _was_ worried. Butch was pissed at me and I didn't want Mitch to be here to suffer the consequences when he was under Butch's care on Sunday.

"Stop worrying about me _mom_," he teased smirking grabbing a hold of my hand and intertwined his fingers with mine.

"I can't help it! Not when your arm-"

"Buttercup, I can do this," he said in a serious tone, "trust me, I'm not letting you down and I'm not going away from you again." I smiled, feeling like a stupid love-struck teenager and walked with him towards the human barracks by Peach Creek Commons.

It had been great having Mitch back next to me, I finally had that relationship I had always wanted, well at least with Mitch, but it had it's downs. I wasn't as tough as I used to, he had made me soft and everyone had noticed it and were taking advantage of it. Suddenly, everyone were making jokes about us being together without any fear or hesitation in their voice. Only a week ago they were afraid to say_ 'hi' _to me and now they were even humming the_ 'sitting on a tree' _jingle every time they saw me with Mitch. Well, not everyone.

Abigail respected me enough to not do that, or at least getting herself a boyfriend made her see things from the other side and figured she would be annoyed if someone else did it to her too. I personally prefer believing that she respected me enough and she wouldn't do it if she didn't have a boyfriend. And her boyfriend seemed to think he was too good to even look at me anymore, to think I used to sleep with the guy. Yup, Butch had had the audacity to ask Abigail out the day after our argument over Mitch's injured arm, and when everyone asked her if she was his girlfriend she would only giggle. When a few became brave enough, or were curious enough, they would ask Butch, and although he wouldn't confirm it, he wouldn't deny it either and that was good enough for a lot of people, including Abigail.

Mitch and I decided to go to Eddy's secret bar instead, after all, the night was young and I could really use some booze right about now. This week all in all had been exhausting, to say the least. The argument with Butch had been particularly draining, not only had he made it clear that he was just using me, which I knew since the beginning but it stung to be rubbed so blatantly in your face, he had hurt someone I cared about, and actually cared about me unlike him, and now he was going out with one of the few friends I had left. I also had to deal with Blossom's constant nagging about me being irresponsible, since I had started getting home late because I was hanging out with Mitch. Jack was also unhappy with that because I was getting distracted instead of watching Butch, like I had been assigned to do. Thing was, watching Butch meant watching Butch _with_ Abigail and I was in no mood for that. I didn't want to see him snog her 24/7, even if it was my duty placed on me by my Sensei. But tonight was about forgetting about everything that happened in the last week.

Sadly though, life decided to play a nasty trick on me and it appeared that Mitch and I walked into the bar right on time to see Butch and Abigail kissing publicly making their little fling a tad bit more official. I made a sound of disgust, making Mitch snort, and walked over to the booth that was the farthest away. Butch was sitting on a bar stool and Abigail was sitting on his lap as they talked to some of Abigail's KND friends. He seemed to be having a great time, since he had a huge smile on his face and would actually laugh with the group as what I supposed was a joke someone had just said, and every time _he _talked, Abigail would look at him and hang onto every word. Barf.

_Where was her dignity? How could someone like _Butch _make her act so out of character? This wasn't her!_

Nazz, who was a part-time waitress part-time Fuse butt kicker, brought us some soda's because apparently the alcohol was unavailable at this moment and this was all I could get. I glared daggers at Butch because I knew he was the one responsible for the alcohol for becoming _unavailable_ for _me,_ since it appeared that everyone in his circle of friends seemed to be enjoying it; he only smirked at me. I looked over to Mitch and he was looking down, his lips a thin line, and I could tell he was getting annoyed that I was paying more attention to everyone and everything but him. I moved my hand in a swift motion to grab his and somewhere in the process my drink spilled all over my shirt and skirt.

_There was her dignity, right next to mine buried in a deep hole of embarrassment._

I cussed under my breath as I grabbed a napkin and tried to clean the mess a bit until I realized my clothes had no salvation other than the washing machine itself, "I'm gonna go, babe," I said leaning forward and pecking Mitch's cheek softly. "Better?"

"Much better," he whispered tenderly making me smile like an idiot. I wasn't someone to give a major PDA and he understood that but I guess he wanted a more affectionate girlfriend. I figured some gentle kissing here and there wouldn't hurt anyone.

I smiled at him and made my way out of the bar and to Tech Square to take a bath. It was actually pretty dark, sometimes the acid gas would cover up the moon and it would be darker than usual, and the smell became rather unbearable sometimes, it smelled like everything was rotting around us. It was as if Fuse knew that 'night time' meant 'sleep time' for us and that was when our defenses lowered, but that didn't mean we wouldn't defend our grounds if it were the dead of night. He had actually tried it before, but we all fought bravely and I had never kicked so much ass in my pj's before. I even saw one of the Kanker sisters fighting her Fuse Clone counterpart with an avocado mask on, it was quite the show to watch.

I got into my room through the window, since I didn't feel like walking around the halls showered with sticky soda, and got in the tub once it had filled up with warm water. I closed my eyes and actually took my to relax my tense muscles, this was doing a better job than the alcohol and it didn't have its annoying side effects. No headaches, no hangovers, and no doing things because you're not thinking straight and end up regretting them later. I actually did the last part more often than not. After what had felt to be about an hour, since I had completely lost track of time, I reluctantly pushed myself out of the tub letting the now almost cold water run down my body.

I looked in the mirror feeling very self-aware, my body was very thin and although I hadn't lost any strength I _had_ lost muscle mass because of the lack of proteins. Abigail was curvier on all the right places and more noticeable, she definitely had the upper-hand on that aspect. I wasn't surprised Butch had picked her over any other girl; over _me_. I shook my head feeling pathetic for comparing myself to Abby like that and quickly got dressed when I heard a soft knock on my door.

I opened the door to find Mitch standing there with a nervous look on his face, "Hey there, Mitch."

"Hi," he breathed out.

Then there was silence as we only stared at each other, I'm not gonna lie it got kind of awkward. "Can I help you with something?"

"So... I've been back for a while... and I was w-wondering..." Mitch was twitching, I could hear the nervousness on his voice which made me smile, hopefully he didn't notice it was in amusement, "I was wondering if... you w-wanted to... c-celebrate?"

"Celebrate... _how_ exactly?" I quirked my eyebrow actually having an idea of what he meant, trying hard not to blush.

"Well... you know..." I saw him blush as he pulled out a small aluminum squared package, "spending the night... together?"

When I realized what it was, I froze as I suddenly remembered something that should've been a priority at the time. "Oh. Crap!"

Mitch puckered his eyebrows in confusion, his cheeks probably burning in embarrasment, "I didn't think you'd be so against it,"

"I'm not! it's just..." I was stuttering, I felt all the blood leave my face as my heart started beating faster, "I need time to think... about it... I gotta go!"

"Wait!"

I didn't wait and I didn't look back either, I had to get out! I had to get answers from him! I flew out of my room through my window and was out of Tech square in a flash and on my way towards Goat's Junk Yard, where he should be. It was far darker outside than when I left the 'bar' after my accident, how long did I take in the tub? Anyway, judging by the darkness I assumed he wasn't with Abigail because she had to be in Sector V, unless he decided to skip his shift to be with her. No, that wouldn't happen, Butch could be that irresposible but not Abigail, she was a professional and took her job very seriously and wouldn't let him bail on his shift when they could spend time together during the day. So I continued my full speed course to Goat's Junk Yard to find _him._

I tried to focus, I wasn't thinking straight and my thoughts weren't making any sense, it was just... I just couldn't believe I had been so stupid and irresponsible. I had done everything Blossom had warned me not to do and now I could face inevitable consequences. If my suspicions were true, I could potentially end up known as the whore of the whole place and Mitch would hate me forever. I tried to keep calm an relax but I couldn't, so as soon as I spot his flying figure patrolling the area I tackled him to the ground.

"I didn't know you had missed me that much," he joked and I couldn't help but punch him across the face.

"That was for Mitch," I said grabbing his shirt and pushing him down on the ground as I saddled him. "I have something to ask you and you better not lie!"

To my annoyance Butch started laughing, "how can I help you? Please, do ask."

"Stop. Laughing!" I glared and pulled at his shirt making his face get closer to mine. "I need to ask you something about... you know..."

I felt my cheeks burning as I trailed off not feeling so brave all of the sudden. How could I ask such a personal question?

"What do you want, Buttercup?" I noticed he wasn't laughing anymore, as a matter of fact his brow had a slight pucker and his lips were a thin line; he was annoyed. "Get on with it."

_Why can't you just read it off my mind? You seem to like doing that._

"I can't read it off your mind if you're not thinking about it doofus," I frowned at his insult but bit my lip realizing I wasn't thinking about it to keep me from embarrassing myself.

I took a deep breath, "...Protection?"

He quirked an eyebrow at what seemed to be the most utterly confused facial expression I have ever seen, "What?"

"Did you... you know... use... protection... when we..." I hated him for not reading my mind now, it was like he was doing it on purpose!

Realization seem to hit him as he let out a long_ 'oh' _then he shook his head, "Nope."

I felt my blood run cold, "Why _not_? Don't you know there are _consequences_ for that?" Of course he didn't care! He wasn't going to be the one walking around with a huge belly.

He smirked, "I know that, and I'm going to admit I'm kind of surprised it took you so long to ask for something as vital as that, though." To be honest I hadn't even thought about it until... "Until what?"

"Nothing," I said swallowing saliva leaving my mouth feeling surprisingly dry. "Why are you so calm? I figured this would freak you out too."

His smirk widened, "Because Fuse created a gas that made every single living creature on this planet unable to reproduce. So we're safe."

"How do you know that?"

"Brick actually did his homework and researched every attack Fuse had made in other planets. The others were able to send out messages as a warning of this imminent threat and some even kept track of the decaying conceptions the longer Fuse stayed. I guess Fuse realized that even if they were holding their lines, without new warriors being born the others would die out eventually." Butch's smile was smug, probably because neither Blossom nor Dexter had figured this out and he had all this knowledge none of us had even thought of questioning. "Besides, do you really think we were the only ones banging unprotected? Trust me, others are doing it too and no one is carrying a baby around, are they? So you can go ahead and shag that Mitch of yours without worrying of getting a little mistake growing in your belly."

"Like you and Abigail?" I bit my tongue but it was too late, the words had left my mouth and I sounded as catty as ever.

He arched an eyebrow, as a smirk attempted to take over his lips, "Hey! She's willing and I'm needing, it's a win-win for everyone."

I felt something twirl in my stomach and let go of his shirt feeling that 'something' take the shape of anger as it expanded throughout my body. It didn't matter anyway, now that I knew I couldn't get pregnant I could spend less time worrying about it and more time actually doing it with Mitch. It would definitely be a different experience since Mitch actually cared about me.

"Do you really think he's gonna be better than_ me_?" Butch asked arching an eyebrow more than amused.

"He might be a virgin but I can assure you-"

"Sorry to break it to you, but your little boyfriend isn't a virgin," he seemed to enjoy telling me that for some reason, maybe because it stung.

"How do you know?" I asked quite defensively.

"He reminiscences about it from time to time," Butch made a face of disgust, "specially when he's thinking about doing it with you, your 'PPG' status makes him... _anxious_. Quite pathetic really." I looked away feeling surprisingly hurt as I fought back the tears that had pooled behing my eyes. "Come on, Buttercup, don't be naïve, _you _did it, why wouldn't_ he_?"

Because whoever he could've possibly done it with couldn't possibly be as persuasive as Butch. "I don't care,"

"Yes, you do," he said rather serious, "why you care it's what I can't understand, I'm definitely better than him in many ways."

"Oh yeah?" I quirked an eyebrow defiantly, "Name one."

"I'm a better fighter," he smirked.

I opened my mouth to say a counterargument, but then closed it in defeat. I narrowed my eyes at him, "Name two."

"I can name fifty!" he said very smugly, "and number fifty is going to be 'better in bed,' I just hope you come to your senses before you have to learn this the hard way."

I rolled my eyes, "I'm pretty sure male anatomy doesn't change from man to man,"

"No, but _skill_ does," he said very smugly making me roll my eyes again.

"Don't flatter yourself," I said crossing my arms over my chest looking away.

"I'm not," he said he said smirking, "if I were flattering myself, you wouldn't be sitting on top of me on your own free will."

I looked down to see that I was still sitting on top of Butch, my butt was on his belly, making my blood rush to my cheeks while I noticed Butch holding his hands up as if to make a point. I made to get off of him, but his hands quickly got a hold of my hips and pulled them down keeping me in place. I glared at him, feeling my cheeks burning, while my heart started beating faster and my hands started shaking. It had been too long, about a week now, since I had last been with Butch and I hadn't realized how much my _body_, not me just my body, had missed him until now.

"It's your fault you went that long without my attention," he commented in a serious tone making me frown.

"You're the one going around kissing other girls in front of me," I said surprisingly annoyed, "I haven't even kissed-" I bit my tongue again, I sure talked a lot, or at least, said everything I wasn't supposed to.

"You haven't? Why not?" he seemed too pleased with this piece of information, and apparently decided to study my thoughts, and got that look of focus on his face when he was trying to get the truth out of me himself, instead of me simply blurting it out in my thoughts.

"Why don't you get it out of Mitch's thoughts?" I asked making him frown in disgust, "hey! It can't possibly be that bad."

"He has very livid fantasies about you," Butch said rather annoyed, making my blush deepened, which seemed to annoy him even more. He then smirked, "but going inside his head would be like going inside my own memory since I've already done everything he wants to do to you, except the whole 'lick the soda that spilled on you off with my tongue,' I didn't get a chance to do that... yet."

"You're being a prick!" I yelled cutting him off and trying to push his hands away so I could get up and leave.

"And you're being a prude!" he yelled back pushing himself up, making my body fall down as my thighs landed on his. "You want me-"

"I don't want you!"

"Yes, you do," he hissed on my face, "but you rather say otherwise and not give us what we both _need_."

"I don't _need_ you," I said trying to push myself up but he wrapped his arms around me, pulling me closer to him, as his lips crushed against mine sending shivers down my spine making me arch against him.

Butch tangled a hand in my still damped hair keeping my head in place, while he used his other hand to part my lips with his thumb and claim my mouth with his tongue. Last time I had been able to be passive and indifferent because I was angry at him for hurting Mitch, but mostly because he had hurt _me_. He made it very clear he only wanted to get laid and it didn't matter who he got it from, and that had stung for some reason. But this time, I kissed him back as hungry as ever, I needed this, not him, just my body pressing against his. I battled his tongue, and after remembering he had made the mistake of biting me, I bit him back... _hard_, making him growl as he placed each of his hands on each of my butt cheeks pressing me harder against him.

I moaned against his lips, I wasn't angry anymore and when that anger had left me _days_ ago I was left feeling annoyed and... _frustrated_... at his indifference towards me. He had decided to go to Abigail instead, and he had probably already done this with her. I felt disgusted at the idea of his lips being on hers and made my mind to end this. I placed my hands on his shoulders to push him away, but he abandoned my lips to suck the spot on my neck that would always drive me insane.

I bit down hard on my bottom lip and opened my eyes to find ourselves still in the middle of the forest. If anyone were to pass by for whatever reason, they would be in for a show.

"Didn't know you were into public shows," he said in a joking voice trailing all the way from my neck to my mouth with his tongue.

"I'm not," I said covering his mouth with my hand to keep him from kissing me again. I needed to think straight! "Which is why we need to stop this right now."

He pushed my hand out of his face and looked at me with a confused frown, which later turned into a glare, "You know how I feel about teasers," it sounded awfully close to a threat, "and I will take you right here and now if I have to, before you go all hypocrite on me again like last time."

"I'm not a hypocrite!" I bit out.

"Prove it!" he hissed in my face, "admit that you want me and let me have you!"

I felt a jolt of pure need ran through my body making it shiver, but I shook my head, "I won't be another one of your _dishes_."

He studied my face looking confused and surprisingly irritated, "Fuck Buttercup! How stupid can you possibly be?"

In a swift motion, I was the one laying on the ground, eyes widened but were quickly shut as Butch started devouring my lips again. My hands went to his hair as his fully clothed hips pressed down against my fully clothed hips. Oh the bliss. This was getting out of control too fast too soon and if we didn't stop it something was gonna happen right here and now, something I knew I was going to regret for many different reasons. I had to get him to hold off long enough for at least to make it to a more private place.

"Fat chance, Buttercup," he groaned against my neck nibbling it.

"I personally prefer you in a bed," I ran my hands through his fully clothed back.

"I personally prefer you whenever I can have you, and I'm not taking any chances today,"

He pulled away to take his shirt of but I intersected, "I'll stay with you all night."

He stopped to look at me, as if studying my face for a trace of a lie but then stood up, "Let's go you little minx." he grabbed my hand and pulled me somewhere.

* * *

_Hidden in the darkness..._

"Well, well, Buttercup, you're not such a good girl after all..." a smirk spread across his lips as an evil plan formulated in his head. "Let the fun begin."

_**To Be Continued...**_

**So apparently Buttercup wears a skirt in Fusion Fall, I was pretty sure they were shorts lol I haven't played the game in a while lol I hope you liked it :D please tell me what you think in the reviews!**

**Coming Next Chapter:**

_"I need to know what game you're playing so I can play too,"_

_"Go play with Abigail, she's your girlfriend isn't she? Go to her."_

_"Don't be like that Buttercup, just tell me why you're so evasive all of the sudden?"_

_"Read on my mind and figure it out,"_

_"If that's what you want fine!... Now that's... inconvenient,"_

_**Take Care Everyone!**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Updated: 09/02/2012**

**Aftershock**

I yawned as I opened my eyes slowly and fighting the laziness off my body. I tried stretching my muscles but found myself limited to movement making me look down to the source of my immobility to find an arm wrapped around my waist; and that's when I remembered. I had gone against every instinct and feminist bone in my body and had given myself to Butch again, and with that I had also given him another chance to hurt me and humiliate me. He could easily use this against me and tell Mitch what I had done with him. Mitch was gonna hate me forever, especially after I ran out on him when he offered to do this with me. I was such a horrible girlfriend.

I shoved at his arm wrapped around my waist, my back against his front, and tried to shift my body so I could face him, but I couldn't. His grip on me was too tight and I didn't have enough space to move making me growl exasperated. I fought the urge to cuss aloud when I saw sunlight coming through the curtains of the one window in the room. Judging by the decor it looked to have belonged to a messy teenage boy. A very lonely one at that, the room was practically empty aside from the bed and a night stand it had nothing, no pictures, no posters of _any_ kind, and it felt oddly kind of familiar. I smiled remembering the first time I had gone to Mitch's room, it looked pretty much like this one.

"Stop thinking about him," Butch growled into my ear, sounding almost like a threat, his hot breath caressing my ear, tickling it.

"He _is_ my boyfriend," I said felling shivers run down my body as his lips caressed the back of my neck and shoulder.

"Break it off," he ordered nibbling at my shoulder while his hand made small, distracting, circles on my navel.

I snorted and tried to get out of the bed but his grip tightened around my waist making me frown, "I have to go."

He flipped me so my back was on the bed as his eyes bore into mine, "No."

"Bubbles likes to break into my room and wake me up in the middle of the morning," I couldn't help but smile amused as he started kissing my neck. "She's going to suspect when I'm not there."

"Tell her you left early for once," he said as if it were the most obvious answer, "you're supposed to be babysitting me, aren't you? Just tell her Jack asked you to kick it up a notch and watch me more often than not."

I laughed when his lips brushed a ticklish spot in my neck, "what if Blossom checks the security cameras again?"

"I'll take care of it," he groaned seeming pretty annoyed.

"And how are you gonna do that?" I asked quirking an eyebrow.

He sighed exasperated, "It doesn't take a genius to hack into security camera system and tape over the contents,"

It kind of actually did, "You talk as if you had done it before," I narrowed my eyes suspiciously.

"Why do you think Blossom hasn't murdered you for me being in your room last time?" he smirked mischievously.

"Because my room has sound-proof walls?"

"_And_ I hacked into the system," he smirked beaming with pride, "So according to the security cameras I wasn't there in the first place,"

"And what are you going to tell Jack about tonight?" Considering Jack's already doubting Butch's loyalty, and him missing his shifts isn't helping.

He smirked as his eyes shone with malice, "I'll just tell him that I got distracted because you needed a nice hard-"

"Why are you such an ass?" I narrowed my eyes angrily at him and tried to push myself out of the bed but he caught me again pulling me closer to him.

He let out a laugh when he saw my glare, which only made me angrier, and then he kissed my lips, "I had already talked to him about getting an extra night off. Last night was that night."

"And Blossom allowed that?" I arched an eyebrow surprised.

"It was Jack's request," his lips were adorned with a satisfied smirk, "she can say 'no' to me or Brick all she wants, but when it comes to Jack she has to bite her tongue."

"You seem to be too pleased," I laughed knowing the feeling of victory when someone other than Blossom got the last word for once.

"I can't say you had nothing to do with it," his voice turned seductive as his lips pressed against mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss parting my lips and inviting his tongue to play. He pulled away, his eyes shining bright with lust, "For someone who has to leave, you sure are making it hard for me to let you go."

"Since you're going to take care of it, I might have a couple minutes to spare," I smiled seductively, tangling one hand in his hair and running my other hand down his chest, and pressed my body against his making him groan.

* * *

_Take a deep breath... everything is gonna be fine._

I landed in front of Peach Creek Commons feeling uncharacteristically anxious, my hands were shaking, my heart was racing and a hole of emptiness was growing inside my belly getting bigger by the second only making me more anxious. I had to explain to Mitch why I had run on him last night, and the most reasonable thing to do was to break up with him until I sorted my feelings out. Yes, that's what I _should_ do, but it isn't exactly what I _want_ to do.

I like Mitch, I've liked him for years and the idea of losing him over a stupid physical relationship with my worst nemesis. Which is why I can't explain my attraction towards Butch. I mean, yeah he was my enemy and I was supposed to hate him but, on my defense, he awoke emotions in me that could be easily confused with something else. Besides, I was the type of person who acted based on her emotions and then debated on whether that had been a good idea or not. That's how we had been programmed since birth: Blossom did the thinking, Bubbles did the feeling and I did the acting. And now I made as much sense as Mojo did.

I let out a deep sigh and made my way towards the human barracks where I knew I would find him. I had to tell him the truth and apologize and with some luck he wouldn't hate me forever. I found his door and knocked softly, in hopes that he hadn't listened, as I went over what I was going to tell him in my head. A few seconds passed and I assumed, and hoped, he wasn't there but when I was about to turn on my heel to leave, he opened the door completely shirtless. He arched an eyebrow at me, since I usually never came here, but the hurt in his eyes told me he wasn't very happy about this vein the first time.

"Can I come in?" I asked nervously chewing on the inside of my cheek.

He nodded and opened the door wider so I could step inside. I heard him close and lock the door, which made uncharacteristically anxious, and heard him drop himself on a couch. The barracks were far more spacious than I had thought, there were four rows of bunk beds, each had a small desk with two drawers, and there was a TV and even a sofa. I guess the Professor, or my nerdy sister and the nerd boy, really wanted the humans to stay and didn't want the living conditions to be an excuse to leave.

"What do you want?" he asked taking me out of my thoughts. He seemed annoyed and the bags under his eyes told me he was tired.

"I wanted to talk about what happened yesterday-"

"About you running off on me?" his face twisted into a small glare, "it was humiliating enough that it happened, now you want to humiliate me even more by talking about it too?"

"I'm sorry," I said looking away from him like a coward, "I... I freaked out... and... well… we haven't even..." _kissed yet..._

Now it was his turn to look away, "I guess... I did ask for too much too soon."

"I still shouldn't have run out like that," I admitted crossing my arms over my chest. Of course I couldn't tell him _'I freaked out because I had been sleeping with someone else and didn't bother on being careful and you bringing it up made me realize my mistake so I had to make sure I wouldn't be carrying his child.'_ Perfect recipe for being dumped by the guy you've had a crush on for years.

"Shoulda, woulda, coulda all day," he said, a small smile appearing on his lips at our inside joke.

"Yeah..." I bit my lip as a thick silence settled between us.

"Are you... mad... at me?" he asked, an honest look of worry on his face that made my heart sink.

"No, I'm not mad at you," I answered with a sincere smile on my face. If anything, he should be mad at me which is why I had to do the right thing, "but I... I do believe we... we should take a time apart..."

"Wait! You're breaking up with me?" He seemed startled and... a bit mad, "I mean... I didn't... if you're not mad... then we... you... _why_?"

_Because I'm the worst human being on the planet_, "I need some time... to think about... you know..."

"Is there someone else in your life? Is that it?" I couldn't help but flinch and he noticed. He arched an eyebrow incredulously, "Do you love him?"

"No!" I answered right away. "I don't even know what I was thinking when..."

"Then why do you want to break up with me?" he asked standing up and walking towards me closing the space between us.

I was utterly confused, "You're not mad at me?"

"Should I have a reason to?" _Yes_. He asked quirking an eyebrow. I opened my mouth to reply but he held up a hand and spoke, "Do you still feel attracted to him?"

"No." I quickly answered again.

"Then why do you want to break up with me?"_ Because you don't deserve a cheating girlfriend. _I looked down and he let out a loud sigh, "Buttercup, I've kissed other girls too, I've even slept with a few, don't feel so bad because you kissed someone else other than me."

_So Butch wasn't lying..._ I bit my lip annoyed at myself for thinking about Butch when I was on the verge of losing Mitch, probably forever, "So you're not mad?"

"I'm jealous," he admitted making me blush, "someone else got to kiss you before I did but... that's no reason for us to break up."

Another wave of awkward silence threatened to invade us, but thankfully my communicator rang opening a window to run away from this conversation, if at least for a bit.

"I need to take this," I said when I saw Blossom was calling me making me frown. Mitch nodded crossing his arms over his chest, and I answered, "Blossom, what is it?"

_"We need you in the meeting room. Now."_ She stated curtly in a very serious tone, I wondered if Butch had done his part on making sure I didn't get in trouble. If he hadn't I was gonna punch him in the throat.

"I'm on my way," I said and put my communicator away. I looked at Mitch whom still had a serious look on his face, "I have to go."

"I understand," He nodded and walked over to the door unlocking it I followed him and realized he had been shirtless the entire time. "I wish you could stay a little longer... you know... to sort things out..."

"If you still want me I-" he crushed his lips against mine but instead of feeling a rush of heat and blinding passion, a wave of confusing disappointment swept through my body. It was maybe the guilt I felt for sleeping with Butch, yeah... it was the guilt.

He broke the kiss smiling, "I will always want you, and I still want you to be my girlfriend."

I smiled, still feeling a tingle of confusion inside of me, and nodded unsure of what else to do. This was awkward. He bent down to kiss me again, this time more 'tenderly' and I could only awkwardly kiss him back and smile when he broke the kiss. I waved a goodbye and set to the air on my way to Tech Square still feeling confused by my lack of reaction. I had liked Mitch for years and I expected our first kiss to be more... _passionate._ I had expected to feel a jolt of joy run through my body, or maybe see fireworks, or melt on the inside, or _anything _other than just confusion and awkwardness! Maybe that was the problem, society and all those chick flicks Bubbles had made me watch had made me set unrealistically high expectations of what I should feel when I had first kiss with the guy I've had a crush on for so long. Yep, it was all society's fault.

I landed in front of Tech Square and shook my head to clear my thoughts, Blossom needed me for some reason, and the fact that it was so urgent worried me to death. What if Butch got caught hacking into the computer? What if he told on me? I was dead meat for sure, Blossom was probably going to ground me forever and make me wear a scarlet letter or something her poetically annoying head desired. I would be humiliated, at least after I murdered him.

I marched through the halls making my way to the meeting room when someone pulled me out of my way and pushed me what I assumed was supposed to be '_hard_' against the wall.

"Buttercup," his snake-like voice said my name with venom, "funny to see you here like this again, it almost feels like a déjà vu, doesn't it?"

"What are you doing here, _Ace_? I thought I made it clear you don't belong here," I sneered easily pushing his hands off me.

"I guess," his lips pursed into a smirk, "although I must say that having the privilege of watching you sucking that green ruff's lips off kind of makes me feel like I belong."

My brow puckered innocently, "What are you talking about?"

"Don't try that with me BC," he flashed a bright amused smirk, "We both know you rattled that guy's bones, or would you like refresh your memory?"

Ace pulled out a folded piece of paper giving it to me, I unfolded it and saw with horror that it was a picture of me and Butch kissing in the woods. I felt my blood run cold and my heart stopped beating for a second.

I crushed the piece of paper in my hands only making Ace laugh, "Do you really think that's the only copy I would have?"

I felt my face twisting into an angry glare as I gritted through my teeth "Don't you dare tell _anyone_ or I'll-"

"Tsk Tsk Tsk Buttercup, you're in no position to threaten me sweetheart," he said smiling too pleased. "As a matter of fact, if I were you I'd be thinking of ways to buy my silence, and let me tell you something doll-face, it ain't cheap."

I took a deep breath to calm myself since my hands were beginning to shake uncontrollably I clenched my jaw "What do you want?"

"Privileges," he said making my face twist in disgust. When he understood the reason for my frowning, his own face showed disgust, "Not _those_ kinds of privileges!"

I felt my mouth incredibly dry, "What type of _privileges_ then?"

"Power! And freedom to use that power," he said snaking an arm around my waist, "and you are going to give me that power."

"And how am I supposed to do that exactly?" I asked pushing him off.

He let a small laugh leave his mouth, "You're not gonna get in the way of me doing what I want when I want to," he said in a low threatening voice, "you're not going to stop me when I take control of the human barracks and you're not going to let your sisters get in the way either."

"I can't do that-"

"Then I guess I can't keep my mouth shut," he said faking hurt as I fought the tears that were beginning to form behind my eyes. Ace's lips twisted into a victorious smile, "is that a yes?"

I took a deep breath, I was beginning to feel helpless and there was nothing that pissed me off more. "As long as you don't tell him anything-"

"It's a deal then," he cut me off, smirk wide on his lips. I felt white rage run through my veins and the only reason why I didn't murder him right then and there was because my communicator rang.

I knew who was on the other line without needed to check it. "I'm already here," I answered to Blossom before she could tell me anything. My hands were shaking and I had to use every bit of will power to not crush the communicator into tiny pieces.

"I will you a list of things I'm going to need you to do for me," Ace said walking away, my anger growing with every step he gave, "or I'm going to make sure your little boyfriend finds out someone else is making you... _happy_."

If I murdered him mercilessly I wouldn't have to do anything he said. I could drown him in goo and throw his body into one of Fuse's portal, yes, then everyone would think the spawns got him in an ambush and took him there to take samples. Spawns where actually known for doing that, Fuse was trying to get as much DNA and body structure information as possible to make his Fuse Clones stronger and perhaps more accurate to infiltrate an attack. This was why we had to cremate all the heroes that died in battle, to avoid having Fuse use them as laboratory experiments, but in Ace's case, Fuse would have nothing to work with after I was done with him.

I stomped my way to the meeting room to let the world know this was not the time to tease me about my boyfriend and to make sure everyone got and _stayed_ out of my way. I slammed the door open making some of the people of the room flinch, making Blossom scowl disapprovingly, and I sat on my usual chair next to Bubbles.

"Thank you for joining us, Buttercup," Blossom's calm scold made me clench my jaw. I narrowed my eyes at her but kept my retort to myself, I wasn't in the mood to argue with anyone.

"Now that everyone is here we're going to start this meeting," Dexter announced taking me off guard. We usually had more people in the meeting room, more like all of the heroes, this time only Brick, Boomer, Butch, Mojo, Mandark, Dexter, Bubbles, Blossom and the Professor were here.

"Where's Ben?" Bubbles asked obviously as confused as I was. _And Mitch..._ I added.

"He's not going to be joining us today," said the Professor watching Brick warily as if nervous of his presence. I don't blame him though, if there's a ruff to keep away from a 'confidential' meeting it should be Brick. He's too smart for our own good.

"We asked you to come here because we have designed a plan that will finally rid Fuse of our planet," Brick said evenly throwing the manila envelope, the one I had seen Mandark trying to hide, in front of Blossom, even though Dexter eagerly grabbed it and skimmed through its contents.

His brow puckered and his eyes stared intently into the paper, "A time machine?"

"We had already attempted to do that," Blossom intersected before any of them could reply. "Our only options are to send someone who would only have about ten seconds before being transported back to the present or bring people from the past to help us fight the attack. Needless to say both are out of the question."

"We have managed to discover a way to alter the space-time continuum that will allow us to return to the past," Mandark's gaze was solely put on Dexter awaiting his response to his revealed information.

Blossom's eyes widened and she pulled the papers from Dexter's hands scanning every single detail as if her life depended on it. Brick was smirking, watching Blossom intently as his eyes lit up when she started re-reading the paper for any mistakes. Madark and Dexter were having a stare contest were Mardark was looking down on him with a victorious smile while Dexter looked as if in shock. Mojo's victorious smile was no different than Mandark's and I could tell he was holding back one of his signature blabbers, especially since he was so determined to prove to the Professor he was a bigger genius. Boomer had a serious expression on his face, and I figured the mention of Ben's name had something to do with it, since he couldn't keep his eyes off my blonde sister. Even when she looked up and noticed him staring at her, he didn't look away.

I, on the other hand, could only observe the reactions of the people in the room since I had no idea what those bunch of geniuses were talking about but if it meant kicking Fuse out of our planet I'm all down for it. I glanced at Butch for the first time, since I had been trying to ignore him, and noticed he was watching the bickering between Dexter and Mandark with amusement. His eyes focused on me for a split second to wink and smile to then go back to his entertainment. I felt my stomach twirling and went back to staring at the same crack on the table I had been staring at since the meeting started.

I looked up again when Jack's name was mentioned to notice Brick narrowing his eyes at me. I quirked an eyebrow confused and fought the urge to look on either side of my shoulder to make sure he wasn't looking at someone else. His red eyes shifted to Butch, and once he made eye contact his smirk became a thin line. Butch looked at me again, no smile and no wink, and quickly turned to Boomer and started a small conversation. I looked at Brick again, and narrowed my eyes at him mimicking his own frown.

"How are _we_ supposed to remember Fuse as a menace if we go back in time to how things were before Fuse attacked?" Blossom spoke up still not taking her eyes away from the paper. Luckily, that took Brick's eyes off of me and onto her.

"It is possible to return to the past with our memories unaltered," Brick started, "Our bodies, the earth and even Fuse and his monsters will be returned to the same spot they were exactly a year before the invasion, but we will remember everything that happened throughout that time up until the day we activate it."

"What if we think it was just a dream?" The Professor spoke for the first time. He seemed serious and something in his eyes made me worry about him.

"It would be too strange for all the 'heroes' to have the same dream, because dreams are the expression of the subconscious into the conscious that is known as our mind, thus, making it impossible for all 'heroes' to have the same subconscious and-"

"What Mojo is trying to say is we have thought of that," Mandark said interrupting Mojo in mid-rant, "we can alter the time machine into emphasizing a certain memory to make it feel _so_ real that it cannot possibly be a dream."

"Seems like too much of a long shot," Dexter stated crossing his arms over his chest.

"It's still better than training the humans and expect them to be the key factor that defeats Fuse," Brick replied defiantly also crossing his arms over his chest. There was an ongoing battle between the two and I was beginning to doubt it was about their brain-ego anymore.

"I agree with Brick," I said finally getting to talk, and no one knows better than me when it comes to training and butt-kicking. "If anything, the humans are going to help to hold our defenses but sooner or later we're going to have to leave the defense and move into offense if we really want to kick Fuse out."

"I think it has been proven that brute force won't take us anywhere," Dexter replied, his eyes narrowing at my sudden siding.

"And sitting around _discussing _how to get Fuse out of the planet has done such wonders!" I bit out sarcastically.

"Buttercup," Blossom said sternly and I bit my tongue to keep myself from yelling at her too. I was in no mood for this and Dexter talking to me as if I was one of his minions isn't helping the cause.

"We will exhaust every other possibility," the Professor said making Mojo, Mandark, Brick and I frown, "When there's nothing else we can do then we'll use your time machine."

"Really?" I yelled out at the Professor, "You can't be serious!"

"Buttercup!"

"Are we seriously going to wait until everything else has failed to try something that might actually work?"

"What if it fails?" Dexter was eager to ask that question, almost as if he had been holding it back since Brick had offered this solution.

"What if it doesn't?"

"We can't take that risk!"

"Who has to die around here to get something done?" I snarled and walked out of the meeting room.

Now _that_ had been an act. I couldn't handle being in the same room as Butch any longer, not after Ace had seen us and the way Brick watched my every move and glanced back and forth between Butch and me was making me fidgety.

Well, not the whole thing had been an act. I was so frustrated with taking this war just by the defense, by holding our grounds, by waiting for Fuse to attack that I was about to explode. I needed to go out and find Fuse and kick his ass myself or I would go insane. Ace wasn't making things any easier for me, and now I wanted to find Fuse, kick his ass, go back in time, and kick his ass again.

I groaned and walked to take my spot to protect Sector V. Luckily for me, heroes were to not be interrupted by anyone during their shifts unless there was a real emergency. I saw Butch through the corner of my eyes and turned on my heel to walk the opposite direction. I didn't care if I had to walk around the planet to get to my destination I was determined to not cross paths with Butch until I found where Ace kept the original pictures. Besides, I needed to spend more time with Mitch maybe that was why I didn't feel anything when we kissed. I needed to get to that familiar ground again.

I took my spot feeling surprisingly annoyed. I wanted to find Ace and kick his ass, make him tell me where he had hidden the original pictures, and then kick his ass some more. I hated feeling defenseless and being blackmailed by Ace was only feeding my anger. I couldn't believe I had ever fallen in love with that guy, even as Belladonna, not remembering who he was; I still fell in love with him.

I was such an idiot when it came to that subject. Bubbles was far _wiser_ on that subject than Blossom and I combined, and that somehow lowered my self-esteem. I could stand the fact of asking Blossom for advice, after all, when the body failed the brain could come up with a solution and vice versa, but when feeling and mushy lovey dovey stuff was involved it was embarrassing. It made me feel pathetic and lame.

The day went by painfully slow and the fact that Number Three was late was making the seconds go by even slower. I wanted to go home and take a nap but it seemed like Kuki decided that I should drag my shift a more. I looked at the time in my communicator and Kuki had passed from fifteen minutes with a chance of a beat-up to forty seven minutes and a death sentence. I was about to simply leave my spot when I saw her running towards where I was standing.

"I'm sorry Buttercup," Kuki said as she tried to catch her breath, "Abby wasn't feeling well and I lost track of time."

"What's wrong?" I asked quirking an eyebrow, it must be really bad to make Kuki be so late.

"It's her boyfriend," Kuki said with a sympathetic smile on her face, "I think they had a huge argument. She didn't tell me much but I think it was because of another girl."

I flinched but recovered before she could notice, "I hope everything gets better,"

"I do to," she said with watery eyes, "I don't like to see my friends cry."

I walked away feeling like I had stabbed Abby and Kuki with the same knife for no reason. I had done more than just cheat on Mitch, I had hurt Abby, someone I considered a friend, just for a night of passion. Maybe avoiding Butch wouldn't be such a bad idea.

"_Avoid_ me? Really? And here I thought we were over the hypocrisies," Butch's lips were a thin line and his dark-emerald eyes were darker than usual.

I flinched hearing his voice come out of nowhere but it seemed as if he had been waiting for me when I turned the corner in one of the streets that would lead me straight to Tech Square if I kept my pace. I hadn't felt like flying and now I was regretting not doing so.

"I'm not being a hypocrite, at least not to you," I narrowed my eyes at him keeping my distance, "I'm being a hypocrite getting hurt when Mitch mentions being with other girls while I'm off doing... _shenanigans_ with you."

He snorted as his face twisted into a sneer, "He's not as noble as you think he is."

I frowned at him, "What do you mean?

He chuckled his facial features softening into a cynical smirk, "He's telling everyone he had sex with you last night," his smirk didn't get wider because there was no space left in his face, "Funny though, last time I checked it was me on top of you."

There was a pause, I felt my heart clenching at Butch's revelation. "That's fine,"

"No, that's not fine," he gritted through his teeth annoyed getting a good hold of my forearms digging his fingers onto my flesh bruising me, "he's only using you to gain status-"

"And you're only using me to get laid." I sneered in his face pushing him out of my way.

"Can you tell me what is it that I did so wrong this time that made you so mad at me?" he snarled slamming me against a wall, cracking it and getting a good grip on me.

"Nothing!" I yelled back trying to push him off but I couldn't, what's up with guys slamming me into walls today?

"Who else did it?" he was eying me suspiciously.

"No one!" I breathed out. I heard the cement crackle as Butch probably crushed it with his hands. "Just leave me alone."

His facial expression and his grip on me softened but he didn't let go, "There's something bothering you and I want to know what it is."

"What do you care?" I sneered but flinched when he pressed his lips against my neck. "What are you doing?"

"I need to know what game you're playing so I can play too," he breathed against my neck making me shiver.

"Go play with Abigail, she's your girlfriend isn't she? Go to her." I bit my lip to distract myself when he sucked that tender spot on my neck that I loved.

"I broke it off with Abigail," he mumbled against my neck, the sound waves vibrating on my skin. Even though I was shocked, I couldn't beat down the jolt of happiness that those news had brought to me. I didn't like sharing. "I don't either."

"You shouldn't have," I said trying to push him off, "what are you gonna do when you get tired of this dish?"

"Don't be like that Buttercup," he groaned and abandoned my neck to look at me straight in the eyes, his shone with pure annoyance- and something else, "just tell me why you're so evasive all of the sudden?"

"Read on my mind and figure it out," I sneered unable to bring up what happened without feeling a knot in my throat.

"If that's what you want fine!" _Ace saw us the other night and now if I don't do everything he says he's going to tell Mitch. _A part of me was glad to get that off my chest and I couldn't help but say it, think it... whatever, with a bit of accusation. "Now that's... inconvenient,"

"_Inconvenient_?" I repeated through gritted teeth.

"Well... yeah," he shrugged as if it was a pointless issue, "we just have to be more careful next time."

"There won't be a 'next time' Butch," I felt my face twisting into a glare, "you might just care about getting laid, but Mitch actually means something to me and-"

"Wait! You're still with the guy?" he cut me off, a deep frown taking over his features, "You left this morning with the sole intention of breaking up with him."

"_Yes_, I'm still _with the guy_!" I yelled annoyed that he read my mind when I least wanted him to, "and I'm not going to lose him over someone like _you_."

His frown turned into a deep glare, "If he meant something to you, you wouldn't be sleeping around with me like a-" _slut._ I noticed when he bit down on his lip as if to stop himself from finishing his sentence. It was too late. He didn't need to finish his sentence to make a jolt of raw pain run through my body and clench my heart. "I didn't mean that."

"Yes, you did," I clenched my jaw and used every inch of will power in me to not let the tears roll down my cheeks as I murdered him mercilessly.

"Buttercup-"

"Don't bother," I snarled full of anger and tried pushing him away.

He wrapped his arms around me into an embrace and pressed me hard against his body. I tried pushing him but he only tightened his hold on me and it seemed that the more I struggled the tighter the grip. Didn't he understand that I wanted to leave? That I didn't want to see him anymore? That I was done with his insults and how horrible he made me feel about myself?

"Let me go," I gritted through my teeth. The angrier I got the harder it got to hold back the tears. What the fuck was wrong with me? When did I become such a pansy? I'd been called worse things than a _slut_, so why did it hurt so much when it came out of his lips?

"I didn't say it," he mumbled placing his chin on my head.

"You didn't have to," I said shoving against him with renewed strength trying to break free from his grip.

"Buttercup," he said my name so tenderly that made me stop my fighting, "you should know by now that stupidity comes naturally out of my mouth." He pulled away cupping my chin with his right hand and boring his eyes into mine, "You were a virgin, how could you be a slut?"

His features had softened, and his eyes made something knot in my stomach. I frowned confused by the wave of emotions that were assaulting my body. I felt annoyed at myself for being such a pansy, I felt glad he hadn't meant what he said, I felt angry for feeling so happy in his arms and I felt sad that I didn't feel this way for Mitch. The thought entered my mind when Mitch kissed me, my lack of emotion took me by surprise and I couldn't help but compare it to the first time I kissed Butch. It had been hot and passionate- so passionate that we had even ended on a bed, while with Mitch it had been awkward and everything I had hoped to feel for Butch once Mitch came back into my life.

As if on cue, Butch pressed his lips softly against mine and sure enough, there were the fireworks, the butterflies in my stomach, the rush of joy. Everything I had yearned so badly, and actually had to force myself, to feel for Mitch I felt for Butch so effortlessly. I felt him smiling against my lips and I wrapped my arms around his neck. This felt too nice and I was afraid I was getting too addicted to the feeling of his lips against mine.

"Well, well, well," I pushed Butch away and shot my eyes open to see Ace leaning against a tree with a huge smirk on his face. "Looks like someone doesn't know how to behave. Better for me, now I got another superhuman being under the wire."

Butch snorted, only pissing me off even more, "What are you gonna do exactly?"

"I'll tell Brick, let's see how he reacts when he finds out his little brother getting naked with the enemy," I could swear I saw his eyes shining through his sunglasses.

Butch started laughing out loud, and it made Ace and me frown at his response, "You talk like you can actually form a sentence in front of Brick."

Ace's facial features turned into a deep glare, "Wanna try me?"

"I actually do," Butch said making Ace flinch calling his bluff. "Hopefully you've improved from last time."

_Last time... _I frowned at Butch and actually wanted to voice my opinion in all of this but something told me to not interfere.

"I don't really need to talk when I can just show him these," Ace chuckled lifting up the pictures he had shown me earlier.

I saw Butch's body tense and in one quick motion and a blur of dark green he had grabbed the pictures off Ace's hands and disintegrated them in his a ball or dark green energy.

Ace started laughing out loud, which made Butch glare deeply, "Do you really think I'd be such an idiot to bring the originals with me when I know you can destroy them that easily? No my friend! I have the originals hidden somewhere you'll never find!"

I felt my body tensing and going numb as hot white rage started traveling through my veins. I could murder him, I could murder him right now, and I could say I thought he was a Fuse Clone, I mean the guy is green anyway, and that I was protecting myself from an attack. I was right, I should've stayed as far away from Butch as possible, he might not have that much to lose, I mean, how badly is Brick going to react? But Blossom would definitely murder me and _him_ if those pictures got to her. Mitch would be hurt and angry but I won't care much once Blossom is done with me and is disposing of my body.

Butch chuckled and once again in a swift motion and a blur of dark green, his hand got a hold of Ace's neck and lifted him up leaving his feet several inches in the air. Ace's sunglasses fell on the ground and the look of pure fear in his eyes made something cold run down my spine. Ace had his hands on the one hand Butch was choking him with, gasping and panting for air, his body wiggling like a fish that had just been pulled out of the water. Then his body went limp, he stopped wiggling, panting and gasping, and his eyes had turned blank, as if his life had been pulled out from them. Ace's hand let go of Butch's wrist and Butch let his body fall on the ground.

"What did you do to him?" I asked staring at Ace's limp body and empty face.

He looked at me, his eyes dark and almost demonic, his lips twisted into an evil smirk and his voice low and dangerous, "I made him forget."

_**To Be Continued...**_

**I hope you guys liked this new chapter and I can't wait to hear your opinions in the reviews. And yeah, this probably wasn't what you guys were expecting when Buttercup offered to stay the entire night but I'm not good at writing those types of scenes. If I attempted to write it would be a strange and awkward chapter so instead I made this chapter longer than the rest and hopefully with a bit more meat on it... hopefully... Sorry if it didn't make that much sense too.**

**7,342 words in this chapter and they're all for you and your awesome reviews and beautiful faces, because you have been patient with me and have probably been disappointed more often than not but you're still supportive :D thank you!.**

**PS: i,BlueyStar you were right, it **_**was **_**Ace in the bushes :D**

**Coming Next Chapter:**

_"You have to make her forget,"_

_"Make her forget,_ what_?_"

_"You tell me. What was so bad that Ace saw you two doing that you had to erase his memory?"_

_"You don't know what you're talking about."_

_"And you don't know what you're messing with. This is going to be over soon, Butch, sooner than  
you think it is, and I will not have that puff lusting after you when we take over the world."_

_**Take Care Everyone!**_


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